Force of Eagles (44 page)

The sergeant pulled his helmet’s chin-strap tight, said nothing. He only pointed down the gully and moved out.

*

Beasely inched the flaps down as he slowed to 160 knots. The nose came up as he turned the AC-130 into a stabilized gun platform orbiting the prison. “Both IR and TV’s got a target,” the sensor operator in the booth on the cargo deck told them.

The fire control officer bounced out of his seat and looked over the copilot, gauging the target area’s visibility. He squeezed back into his seat next to the navigator. “Take IR guidance,” he said, “smoke and dust might cause a problem.” He punched at the buttons on his fire-control panel and linked the infrared image with the fire-control computer.

“I count three guard towers,” the copilot said. “Tower by the admin building is down. No movement in the compound. Every-body must still be groveling in the dirt.”

“Rog,” Beasely said, “we’ll take out the front tower first, then the two at the rear. Give me the forties.” The FOCO worked his fire control panel and linked the pilot’s trigger to the two 40mm Bofors Automatic guns that stuck their ugly snouts out of the fuselage behind the left main-gear fairing. The sensor operator in the booth drove the crosshairs on his infrared viewer over the tower, illuminating it with that sensor. When he activated the system a diamond appeared on the IR viewer, bracketing the target. The same diamond appeared on the pilot’s HUD.

“Forties are ready,” the loader in the rear called.

The copilot maintained their altitude and airspeed while Beasely flew the yoke for bank. It took a carefully synchronized routine in crew coordination to bring the awesome fire power of the gunship to bear. Beasely turned his head and sighted through the HUD mounted beside the left cockpit window. He jockeyed the yoke and rudders to position the lighted circle on the HUD inside the diamond that bracketed the tower. The circle showed where any round he fired would impact. He mashed the trigger and sent a short burst of high explosive 40mm toward the guard tower. The burst lasted less than two seconds as eight rounds smashed into the structure, shredding it.

Beasely now worked his rudder pedals and slipped the gunship into a turn over the next tower. He could see a guard waving something at him. Again, he mashed the trigger and ripped the head of the tower off. “I think maybe he was trying to surrender,” he muttered, then moved over the third remaining tower.

The illuminator operator, the fancy term the Air Force chose to give the sergeant in charge of operating the searchlight mounted in the tail section of the cargo deck, was doing his most important job—lying down on the ramp. His parachute was off and a cable snapped onto his harness to hold him in the airplane as he stuck the upper third of his body over the edge of the ramp. He was checking their six o’clock position and he was cold. “Ground fire from the tower,” he yelled into his mike.

Beasely stomped on his right rudder pedal to skid the Hercules, then jerked it further to the right. No gunship commander in his right mind ignored a warning from the IO. “Type,” he barked.

“Small arms only,” the IO told him. “The Rangers are running for the wall.”

“Gimme the one-oh-five,” Beasely commanded. The fire routine repeated itself as he repositioned the gunship into a new firing orbit. When he hit the trigger button this time the crew felt a dull thump as the C-130 absorbed the recoil from the 105mm cannon mounted in the left paratroop door. The tower flashed into a ball of fire. When the smoke and debris cleared, there was…nothing.

The gunship flew an orbit around the prison, letting General Mado and Thunder scan it with binoculars. “The first C-130 is over the airfield,” Beasely told them. “Shall I clear the escorting F-15s back to the tanker?” Mado hesitated, and only after Thunder told him that was part of the plan did he give his okay. Beasely turned to the north. “Time to head for the holding pattern and get out of the way.” He had decided to start telling the general what he was doing rather than wait for directions.

Thunder watched Duck Mallard’s C-130 pass down the airfield two-and-a-half miles to the east. And Mado, that intrepid warrior, was on the SatCom with an update for the command center in the Pentagon.

Chapter 47: H Plus 11

Kermanshah, Iran

The first four-man team of Rangers was against the wall. Smoke and dust were still swirling out of the huge holes the bombs had opened up. The buck sergeant leading them only hesitated long enough to check his back up. Three more teams were behind him, running across the open area in front of the prison. Captain Trimler and his radio operator were coming out of the ditch, running as hard as they could. He could see movement in the ditch—the two M60 heavy machine-gun teams were moving sideways in the ditch—they would offset to each side to hold the flanks of the prison and secure the road.

The sergeant pointed at the wall and went through in a crouched position, holding his 9mm MP5 submachine gun down on its assault sling, ready to sweep the area with gunfire. His high man came through right behind him, looking over the sergeant’s shoulder. The third man came through offset to the right, and the fourth came through backward, looking for anything that might spring up behind them. They rushed across the 110 feet of open quadrangle to the main entrance of the cell block. Another four-man team was right behind them. So far no reaction from the guards.

The team paused to reconfigure. The lead sergeant pushed his submachine gun back onto his shoulder and unclipped a stun grenade from his LBE. The high man drew his pistol and the other two waited. The lead pulled the pin while the high man tested the door. It was unlocked. As he twisted the handle and threw the door open the sergeant tossed in the stun grenade, fell back and drew his Beretta. A flash and bang echoed in the building, and the four men went through, exactly as they had come through the wall.

The lead sergeant was the low man and he pounded up the short flight of steel steps leading to the first floor of the cell block. His high man was right behind him, perched over his right shoulder. The door to the first-floor guards’ office on the left was open, and the low man went right through it at an oblique angle, his Beretta automatic extended in front in a two-handed shooter’s grip. He swept the corner opposite to him and then swung his pistol in an arc to the center, concentrating on anything below the waist. His high man was right behind him, button-hooked to the left and cleared his opposite corner just like the low man, but he concentrated on anything above the waist.

Two guards were in the room, one crouched on the floor holding the telephone in his right hand. The low man pumped two shots into his head. The other man was standing barefoot with his hands above his head. He lived. The second team rushed past the office door heading for the second floor while the third team flushed the basement. The backup man came through the door and slapped plastic flex cuffs on the guard’s wrists and ankles while the high man mashed a strip of wide adhesive tape across his mouth. Then they were out the door and up the stairs, following the second team to leap frog them to the third floor.

A burst of rapid shots echoed down the stairwell. The second team had found three guards in the office holding weapons. The first team waited until they were waved past the office before they charged the flight of stairs that led to the next landing. They heard a single shot ring out from the basement followed by four shots from two 9mm pistols. Then silence.

Before they reached the turn landing the sergeant caught a vague movement in the shadows directly above him on the next flight of stairs. It had been little more than a flicker through the open steps, but it was enough. He stopped and pointed with his forefinger to the shadow, his thumb pointed down—hand-sign for the enemy. The backup man leveled his M-16 under his right arm, the forefinger of his left hand extended along the stock in a point-and-shoot position. At the go sign from his lead he moved up the steps to the landing, but his boot caught under the last step and he stumbled, falling out onto the small platform. He rolled and fired up the stairs before a shot ripped into his left leg, just below the knee, shattering the fibula in his lower leg.

Silence.

The lead holstered his 9mm and swung his submachine gun down. He inched up the steps and shoved his weapon around the corner, firing blindly. The high man stepped around him and placed four shots into the shadow above them. A body slid down the stairs.

They regrouped and went up the stairs, and a burst of gunfire came out of the office door, sweeping the area in front of the door but not down the stairs. Whoever was up there obviously did not want to look. The lead unsnapped a frag grenade, pulled the pin, moved soundlessly toward the door, threw in the grenade and moved quickly back. An explosion ripped the room apart and the high man then darted into the room, spraying bullets. Two went into the head of the guard lying on the floor, making sure he was dead before the high man kicked his AK-47 into a corner. The Rangers looked for more guards, and then as quickly as it began, it was over.

“Kamigami would be having your ass right now if he was here,” the lead sergeant’s high man said.

“What for? It was goddamn perfect except for klutzo here falling on his face.” They were watching a Ranger bind up the leg of their wounded comrade.

“Bullshit. You didn’t clear the second team past the first-floor office. Next time…”

*

Stansell could see smoke billowing up from the prison as Mallard flew the C-130 across the roofs of Kermanshah at 240 knots. The pilot holding the plane straight and level at 800 feet above the ground, wracked the throttles back, slowing the cargo plane to 130 knots as they approached the airfield and lined up on the runway. “One minute warning.” Drunkin Dunkin’s voice carried over the intercom.

“We won’t come back this way,” Mallard said, “but nothing like a little low flyin’ to keep a fella’s head down and discourage unwanted guests.” Stansell silently agreed.

“Runway in sight,” Dunkin called. “Thirty-second warning.” The loadmaster acknowledged the call. The Rangers were ready to storm the airfield.

The jumpmaster was standing at the left paratroop door, his head stuck out into the slipstream as he checked the field. He had flown enough practice jumps with Drunkin Dunkin to trust him, but this was combat and this particular jumpmaster had gone in with the Rangers in Grenada. He knew what could happen in combat so he did one last double-check himself. Dunkin had it wired. The C-130 slowed to 130 knots.

“Standby,” the jumpmaster bellowed at the runway clearing team. The seventeen men were split into two sticks and lined up on the ramp. They would not use the jump doors but go straight off the end of the ramp. The jumpmaster pointed at the first line They were standing back-to-belly, right hands clenching their static lines, left hands against the man’s back in front. Their weapons were strapped to their sides, locked and loaded.

The green light by the jump doors switched from red to green as Dunkin yelled, “Green Light,” over the intercom.

“GO!” the jumpmaster shouted when he saw the first flicker of green. It was not the usual static line-jump with the men going out at one second intervals. The first stick of eight men ran off the ramp, pushing each other, the first two out of the plane before Dunkin had finished saying “green light.” The Rangers were so close that the deployment bag on the leader’s parachute hit the second man in the face. Two swings and they were on the ground.

The jumpmaster pointed at the second stick of nine jumpers and seven seconds later gave the next Go. Again, the men ran off the ramp, the last two out being unhappy Air Force sergeants—the Combat Control Team that would act like a control tower and clear the C-130s to land. “Hate group gropes,” one of the Air Force sergeants mumbled, but no one heard him and he landed 1,600 feet down the runway from the first stick.

Most of the Rangers hit the ground with a standard parachute landing-fall and absorbed the shock with a roll that started at the feet and up the leg to the buttocks and then to the upper back muscles. One Ranger did it on the wrong side of his body and came to his feet with a bent M-16. He shrugged off his harness, dropped the useless weapon, and ran for his first objective…to help clear and secure the only building on the deserted airstrip.

Other Rangers set up covering positions at each end of the runway while the remainder ran down the runway, throwing debris and rubbish off to the side as they checked its condition. Six men pushed an abandoned car that had its wheels removed off to one side, and the runway was clear. The Combat Control Team ran along the runway, carrying their portable UHF radios and also checking the condition of the runway. “It’s in great shape,” the controller said, “with a couple of brooms we can even land fighters if we have to.” They set up their radios, contacted Spectre 01 and cleared the C-130s to enter the landing pattern.

*

The Pentagon

Harsh static exploded out of the small speaker in front of Cunningham, rasping at his nerves. The telelight confirmed that he was listening to channel one, the SatCom link to Mado aboard Spectre 01. He spun the volume knob down and looked over his console at the Air Force major sitting at the control panel below him in the next row, calmly working the buttons on the panel in front of her, trying to reestablish contact. The SatCom did not rely on the older KY-57 scrambler for security but used a rapidly shifting frequency rotation. Occasionally the receiver and transmitter frequency shifts drifted apart and had to be realigned; otherwise, only a grating noise could be heard, a perfect discouragement for unwanted listeners. The major keyed her mike: “Please standby while the system realigns.”

“Damnit,” Leachmeyer shouted, “get a clear transmission or we’ll get someone in here who can.”

“I’m in manual override now. One moment.”