188: Chapter 169 Three People

He pushed the reconnaissance report over.

To the north of Kermanshah, in the air defense gap left by the destroyed radar station, two Iraqi Air Force reconnaissance planes had followed the same path within the past forty-eight hours, with an interval of twenty-six hours.

"They are measuring the gap," Reza said. "The third time they come, it will be an actual attack. Tell me where the target is and if we can set a trap."

This time, the three of them did not split up to work.

Bahrami spoke first: "Taking the same route twice is to confirm the coverage boundaries of our passive detection and to check if we have plugged the gap."

Karimi continued: "After reconnaissance, they need to reformulate the strike plan and coordinate airport scheduling and fuel logistics. If they're fast, it will be within forty-eight hours; if slow, within seventy-two."

Galani drew a line on the map: "This flight path extends toward the Ahvaz oil region, not the frontline ammunition depot. The ammunition depot is too close to the front; they are afraid their own air defense might mistakenly hit their own people."

Reza did not interrupt.

"How do we set the trap?" he finally asked.

This time, the three of them said it in unison: Turn off the mobile radar vehicle to maintain the illusion; set an ambush one kilometer inside the gap boundary, using passive infrared and acoustic detection, without relying on radar; wait until the attack aircraft are within effective range before firing, giving them no time to evade.

Reza nodded.

"Go deploy," he said. "Coordinate with the various departments through Karimi; there is no need to wait for my orders."

The three of them stood up.

Galani walked to the door, paused, and looked back.

"What if something goes wrong?"

"If something goes wrong," Reza said, "I will take the blame. But you need to start learning how to take it yourselves for the day when I am not here."

The three of them left.

Reza stood in the empty room, looking at the whiteboard for a while.

On it were words written in three different handwritings, each occupying a corner, with a connecting line drawn later in the middle, pulling the three corners together.

He did not erase it.

A seventy-two-hour trap. The first real test in three months.

Reza picked up his coat and walked out of the room.

(End of Chapter 153)

Chapter 154: The Trap

At the fifty-second hour, the Iraqi Air Force reconnaissance plane came for the second time.

Bahrami was lying in the passive detection station; the acoustic signals in his headphones were intermittent. He cross-referenced the heat source readings and noted the time in his notebook: 14:07, path deviation from the first time no more than three hundred meters.

He pushed the notebook to Galani, who was dozing off nearby.

Galani opened his eyes, glanced at it, and closed them again. "Just as I predicted, they are calibrating the flight path."

"That's also just as I predicted," Bahrami said. "The next time they come, it will be the attack aircraft."

"Within twenty-four hours."

An hour later, Karimi's note arrived, brought by a messenger, handwritten, two lines: Frontline radio intercept, large-scale fuel scheduling at an Iraqi airport in the south tonight, exceeding normal patrol requirements.

Bahrami pressed the note under the sensor readings and recalculated the time. Not twenty-four hours; faster.

He picked up the internal phone and called the other two in.

At the sixty-eighth hour, at two in the morning, sensor number 6 sounded first.

Heat source, low altitude, north-northwest, speed more than twice that of the reconnaissance plane. Then number 3, then number 4. Bahrami marked three points on the map, drew a line, and his hand stopped.

The flight path was correct. The quantity was not.

"I see five heat sources," he said.

Galani stood up. "Five?"

"At least five. There was another signal that flickered between number 3 and number 4 just now; I'm not sure if it's a plane or interference, but that direction deviates from the preset flight path by about two kilometers."

Karimi immediately unfolded the map. Five to six planes; their air defense configuration was designed for two to three. The quantity had doubled, and there was a gap in the frontal interception net.

"Abort," Galani said. "Redeploy; we won't fight tonight."

"If we don't fight tonight, they'll change targets tomorrow," Karimi said. "We only have a two-day window; after that, the attack unit at that Iraqi airport will be rotated out."

"You want me to take on six fighters with two air defense batteries?"

"Are five enough?" Karimi said. "Let's figure that out first."

Galani turned to Bahrami: "Can you confirm that uncertain signal?"

Bahrami took off his headphones and handed them over.

Galani listened for ten seconds, returned the headphones, and drew a line on the map. "If this one takes this path, it will come in from the shooting blind spot of position 2. By the time we discover it after it drops its bombs, it will be too late."

The three of them said nothing.

Then Bahrami said: "I can connect the reading of sensor number 3 to the mobile jamming transmitter, making it generate a fake low-altitude heat source, offset two kilometers to the left of that plane's flight path. The pilot will think there is an anti-aircraft missile chasing him and will instinctively correct to the right; once he corrects, he will enter the firing range of position 2."

"Are you sure you can trick him?" Karimi asked.

"I only need to make him hesitate for three seconds. In low-altitude night flight, three seconds is enough for a pilot to make an instinctive reaction rather than a rational decision."

Galani stared at the map, not moving, and counted silently for five seconds. "Do it. I will be responsible for the judgment of whether or not to fire on that uncertain signal."

No one said another word.

What happened later was very fast.

Bahrami's fake heat source took effect.

The plane that was originally going to take the blind spot veered 1.4 kilometers to the right, just entering the firing range of position 2. The third shot from the anti-aircraft gun hit its tail, and the plane fled northwest, trailing fire, without dropping its bombs.

The other three followed the preset flight path and were intercepted head-on; two were shot down, and one turned sharply and fled after dropping its bombs in a panic, with the bombs landing in an open field seven hundred meters south of the target.

One last one remained.

When its wingman was hit, this one did not flee with it but instead lowered its altitude, bypassed the coverage edges of Bahrami's side sensors, and drilled in from a direction where no position was marked.

It dropped its bombs on relay station number 3.

The three operators had evacuated early, so there were no casualties.

But the station was bombed, and wire communication in the area was interrupted for four hours.

Reza received the report at four in the morning.

He read it twice.

That escaped pilot, in the chaos of perceiving his wingman being hit in real-time, had independently found the coverage blind spot. It wasn't luck; it was extremely fast on-the-spot judgment.

Reza wrote one word in the blank space: "Accurate."

He turned the report to the end and read the post-battle summary co-signed by the three.

The summary stated: The preset plan dealt with four planes, missing the fifth.

The pilot of the fifth plane was above the average level of the Iraqi Air Force.

The blind spot was an omission caused by insufficient resources, not a judgment error.

Remedial plan: Add a mobile sensor unit; there will not be this gap next time.

Reza drew a line under that line of text, neither criticizing nor praising. He had a messenger send a note over:

"Five against four, three shot down, one heavily damaged, zero casualties. Under the condition of insufficient resources, this is the correct result."

"Compensate for the loss of the relay station within a week, and give me a remedial plan."

Then he put the report aside and unfolded the map again.

Within two weeks: one Chemical weapons attack on a city, one airstrike on key facilities, one targeted destruction of a radar station.

None of these were matters on the frontal battlefield; all pointed in one direction: weakening the support capability of the rear.

Reza placed these events side-by-side with three other pieces of intelligence from the past month.

Iraq had stopped large-scale infantry advances on the front line.

They were measuring air defense gaps, destroying communication nodes, attacking cities to intimidate the public, and consuming Iran's chemical defense emergency resources.

This was not the rhythm of a campaign; it was a preparatory rhythm.

Saddam Hussein was clearing the field for something bigger.

Reza drew a circle on the map, with the Khuzestan oil region at the center.

More than seventy percent of Iran's oil exports passed through here. If this stopped, the source of war funding would be cut off.

He wrote a question mark on the edge of the circle, folded the map, and locked it in a drawer.

This question mark needed someone who could verify it.

Three days later, Istanbul.