Brown, Dale - Patrick McLanahan 05 (38 page)

 
          
Well,
this was reality: he was leading six strangers right into the well-prepared and
well-armed clutches of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s army. They were still
five minutes from reaching landfall, and already they were heavily under
attack. Worse, he still didn’t know where the hostages were—or even
if
they were here in the first
place!—and he had no idea how he was going to get them out. Stupid. Dumb.
Asinine. If he survived this, Wohl was rightly going to kick his ass into the
next century—or shoot him, if his rash actions caused the deaths of any of his
men.

 
          
“How
are we doing, Lieutenant?” Behrouzi called up front to the weapons officer.
“Was that three Hawk missiles you evaded?”

           
“Yes, Major,” the weapons officer
replied.

           
“Very good,” Behrouzi said in
Arabic, her smile just as strong and as mind-blowing as always—it was more than
enough to distract even Hal Briggs. “Expect a second volley in a few seconds
and be sure to destroy it with the Sidearms. If it does not come up, prepare
for a Rapier or ZSU-23 radar. I don’t wish to swim to our target tonight.”

 
          
“I’ll
do my best, Major—ah, damn you ... my God . . .
there! Shoot!”
the weapons officer shouted. The commandos in the
cargo bay could hear the threat warning receiver beep, and the Bronco entered
another impossibly tight break to evade another missile launch. But moments
later they heard a loud
fwooosh!
from
the right wing as the first Sidearm anti-radar missile left its rail, and a few
moments later, the threat tone abruptly ended.

 
          
“Very
good, Captain,” Behrouzi called up to the pilot, smiling even more broadly,
wishing that she could be watching the pilot’s actions as he fought to
outmaneuver these Iranian missiles. “Keep up the good work. Let me know when
you have the prison complex in sight.” The weapons officer’s response was
choked off by another hard break, this time to the left, followed by another
Sidearm launch. “What was that, Lieutenant? Another Hawk?”

 
          
The
weapons officer was completely flabbergasted—here he was, fighting for his
life, just milliseconds from getting a missile in the face or crashing into the
sea, and a senior government intelligence officer, an assistant to the
commanding general and the son of the Emir of Dubai, was making conversation!
“That. ..
Allah preserve us, climb
!...
That was a Rapier J-band Blindfire radar, Major.” “Ah, very good, the Iranians
made a mistake,” Behrouzi said gleefully. “They activated their short-range air
defense systems too soon. Did you get it, Lieutenant?”

 
          
“I...
I don’t think so, Major.”

 
          
“That
was the last Sidearm missile—we’re on our own now,” Behrouzi said in Arabic.
“That Rapier is your first priority, Lieutenant—be sure you kill that unit
right away. Range to shore?”

           
“Twenty kilometers.”

           
Behrouzi was silent—and Briggs knew
why: they were still several minutes away from being able to attack any of the
air defense sites with their Hellfire missiles. The longer-range Hawk missile
batteries could still track and shoot at them, no matter how low they flew

 
          
Briggs
clicked on the radio: “Genesis, this is Redman. The lights are bright in
Broadway now. How copy?” No response. “Genesis, this is Redman, anytime now,
buddy.” Still no reply. He removed the headset and tossed it aside. “Looks like
our angel has flown back to heaven.”

 
          
“It
was perhaps too much to hope for,” Behrouzi said. On interphone, she asked,
“Range to shore, Lieutenant?”

 
          
“Eighteen
kil—” He was interrupted by the threat warning receiver’s blaring alarm
again—it was another Hawk missile site. Behrouzi looked into Briggs’s eyes, and
he could sense her fear—the Hawk was locked on, and there was nowhere to run
now. “Hawk acquisition . . . Hawk target illuminator ...” They then heard the
fast, high-pitched
deedledeedledeedle!
as the threat warning system detected the Hawk missile launch. The speed at
which the Hawk system had gone from acquisition to illuminator to missile
launch told them that the Hawk had a solid lock-on. The pilot started his
evasive maneuvers, but everyone could sense that the maneuvers were sharper,
more desperate ... there was a second launch warning tone, then a third....”

 
          
“Missiles
in the air! Missiles tracking!” the gunnery officer shouted. “More missiles ...
I see more missiles in the air! ” One after another, it seemed as if the sky
was filling with missiles, and now a few antiaircraft artillery sites opened up
far in the distance, like a shower of fireworks. “There are missiles
everywhere!” the gunner shouted hysterically. “They are everywhere! They—”

 
          
The
interphone went dead, and the Bronco’s wild evasive maneuvers were cut short. A
terrific explosion shook the Bronco as if a giant hand had slapped it, and
there was a tremendous screech, like a man crying in terror .. . but they were
still flying. Behrouzi tore her headphones off and shouted, “There is a loud
squeal in the radios. I cannot hear anything! ”

 
          
For
the first time in what seemed like years, Briggs smiled. “That’s my angel,” he
said. “Good going, Mack.”

 
          
It
took several minutes for the squealing to subside in the radios and interphone.
When she was able to be heard over the persistent side tones, Behrouzi asked
the gunner, “What has happened, Lieutenant?”

 
          
“Every
missile site in
Iran
opened fire on us all at once,” Junayd replied excitedly, “but all the
missiles seemed to fly in every direction but ours. Then some artillery sites
opened fire—but they were sweeping the skies erratically. I am still picking up
missile tracking, illuminators, and uplink signals, but I see no missiles or
gun sites attacking. It was as if they fired all their weapons at once at some
large mass of targets overhead....”

 
          
“That
is good, Lieutenant,” Behrouzi said. “Our American commander brought an angel
with us on the flight—I hope it stays. Range to shore?”

 
          
“Nine
kilometers,
Major.”                                                       
_N

 
          
“Good.
Well within Hellfire missile range. Do you have that Rapier site yet?”

 
          
“Major,
please, I’m doing the best... wait... target identified! ” the weapons officer
cried out suddenly. “I see it! ”

 
          
“Be
sure it’s not a decoy, Lieutenant.”

 
          
“I
see the Sidearm impact point—the Sidearm hit a wall right in front of the unit
and missed by just few meters. Locked on! ”

 
          
“Well,
kill it, then, pilot, don’t just narrate,” Behrouzi screamed up to the
pilot—the pilot of a Bronco controlled the attack missiles, while the weapons
officer controlled the Gatling gun. Just then, the commandos heard a loud,
sustained
fivoooshhh!
as the first
Hellfire missile left its launch tube, followed by a second launch a few
seconds later.

 
          
In
this engagement, since the range of a Hellfire and a Rapier were almost the
same, the first one to fire would probably be the winner—and Behrouzi’s crew
won. “Target destroyed!” Junayd shouted. “Target destroyed!”

 
          
“Very
good,” Behrouzi said. “Be on the lookout for antiaircraft artillery sites, but
its rare to find antiaircraft artillery units active on a naval installation.

 
          
“Now
I want a careful surveillance of the facility, looking for any evidence of
where those captives might be held,” Behrouzi went on. “You have the diagram of
the security headquarters, correct, Lieutenant?”

 
          
“Yes,
Major,” the weapons officer replied. “Our navigation coordinates are programmed
for the detention facility, which is right next to the base hospital. We’ll
look there first.”

 
          
“The
longer you take, the less fuel you’ll have for your return flight, Lieutenant,”
Behrouzi reminded the cockpit crew in an almost humorous tone.

 
          
“I
understand ... I have the hospital... I see the detention facility. It appears
to be dark inside, Major—no sign of occupation. I see only a few lights on in
the ground-floor security headquarters. The building appears deserted, no
perimeter lights on in the detention facility, no vehicles outside. The
hospital looks as if it is fully staffed.”

 
          
Behrouzi
turned to Briggs and said in English, “You must decide, Leopard,” she said.
“The crew says the detention facility appears deserted—no lights, no sign of
activity. The hospital appears to be fully staffed. Shall we try?”

 
          
“The
detention facility,” Briggs said immediately.

 
          
“We
may have only one chance at this.”

 
          
“I
was in the security business for ten years,” Briggs said resolutely. “Prisoners
always go to the secure facility. If they’re hurt and you’re going to treat
them, you bring the doctors
into
the
facility, not take prisoners
out
to
an unsecure area. And I never allowed anyone to park outside my secure
areas—too easy to hot-wire a car and blow through a gate, or set booby traps,
or take cover during a raid. We go in the detention area, inside the perimeter
fence. Directly on the rooftop if possible.”

 
          
“Very
well, Leopard,” Behrouzi said, her smile showing that she was pleased with his
resolve. She pulled out her chart of the Chah Bahar Naval Base and, in Arabic
and English, briefed their intended target, then ordered her three commandos to
get ready.

 
          
The
Bronco pilot made a high-speed approach from the seaward side of the base at
very low altitude. The weapons officer designated targets for the Hellfire
missiles, identifying occupied buildings that looked as though they were
headquarters buildings or communications centers, and at the same time took
shots with the Gatling gun at every power transformer, large vehicle,
fuel-storage tank, or anything else that he thought might disrupt things down
on the base and cover their activities.

 
          
The
last run was at the security headquarters, which was the lower floor of the
security and detention building. They shot Hellfires at the spots where they
knew important rooms were located—the communications stations, the armories,
the power transformers— and shot out yard lights and any lighted doorways with
the 20- millimeter Gatling gun.

 
          
“I
see a long strip of cloth tied to the outside of a window on the second floor,”
Junayd yelled back to the cargo bay.

 
          
“Does
it form a letter?” Briggs shouted back. “A letter in the Roman alphabet?”

 
          
“Yes,”
Junayd replied, using maximum power on his FLIR targeting scope. “It forms the
letter Af.”

 
          
“That’s
one of our guys,” Briggs said, smiling broadly for the first time. “Madcap
Magician. They’re down there. Let’s get ready!”

 
          
The
weapons officer Junayd saved two Hellfires to blow big holes in the side of the
security headquarters. About 600 yards from the building itself, the pilot
started a hard climb, so he was directly over the detention facility at the
crest of the climb at 600 feet. At that point, the five commandos in the
Bronco’s cargo section made their static-line parachute jumps.

 
          
Briggs
was going out first. He braced himself against the open door at the rear of the
cargo bay, hands and toes outside. As the Bronco started its steep climb,
Briggs found himself looking direcdy down into the security headquarters
complex, a square three-story building surrounded by twelve-foot-high
barbed-wire fences. Then, just before the Bronco reached the top of its climb,
Briggs simply let himself fall through the opening.

 
          
He
heard the roar of the twin turboprops at maximum continuous power only for a
brief instant, and then he heard the wail of airraid and emergency sirens from
the base. The static line yanked his ’chute out of its pack immediately. He
heard the loud
crrrack
...
whuumpp!
of four other ’chutes opening
above him
—very
close above him. He
looked up and saw Riza dumping air out of her ’chute right away, trying to
catch up with him. The three UAE commandos were doing the same, all attempting
to land at the same time as their leaders.