Strike Force Delta (32 page)

There were 21 Iranian military police scattered along the seven boats. The boats themselves were simple wooden carry-alls, long, flat rowboats that were supplemented by diesel engines. All of the cargo was stored up top. Wooden boxes carried the AK-47s and RPG rounds. Waterproofed plastic tubs held the ammunition, plus the batteries, the lighters, and the tape cassettes. The seven boats were lashed together to prevent their getting lost in the dark. They had no running lights and there was no radio communication among them. Wherever the first boat went, the others had to follow.

A man named Zbeg Kamani was riding in the last boat. He was an officer cadet in the regular Iranian Army, assigned to the military police's smuggling operations. This was his first ride up the Farāh River.

He'd been as surprised as anybody when they turned a bend and saw the unmistakable glow of combat coming from Khrash. He'd been expecting nothing more than a simple drop-off of the smuggled items and a
guarantee that they would get into the hands of the right people. Now he could see helicopters firing on the buildings in the city and jet fighters diving on targets near the Habeeb Bridge and dangerously close to the south end of town. Above it all the strangest airplane he'd ever seen was circling like some mechanic bird, looking for a meal.

Praise Allah
, he thought.
What have I gotten myself into?

There were two other men on the boat with him. They, too, were cadets in the regular Iranian Army. This was their first trip as well.

Zbeg was riding down near the end of the boat. As soon as it was apparent something unusual was happening in Khrash, he started making his way up to the front of the craft; he wanted to talk to his two crewmates, to see if they had any idea what was going on.

They were standing at the front of the boat, looking at the glow of the burning city now just about three-quarters of a mile away. Before Zbeg could say anything, though, incredibly, two figures shot up out of the water and landed on their feet right in front of his two comrades. Zbeg couldn't believe it. These two beings were like something from a horror movie. They were slimy and had things sticking out of their ears and noses and mouths. Zbeg was frozen to the spot. He couldn't move; he couldn't speak. He watched helplessly as his two comrades, paralyzed themselves by the sudden appearance of these two creatures, offered no resistance as the monsters grabbed them around the shoulders and brutally slit their throats.

At just about the same moment, the boat in front of
them suddenly blew up, as did the boat in front of that. These particular vessels were carrying the majority of the high explosives in the shipment, so the twin blasts were incredible. Zbeg found himself being thrown through the air and the air was suddenly filled with fire and smoke. Even before he hit the water, he saw other water creatures moving quickly around the boats at the head of the column. They were killing the people on those boats as well and apparently blowing the boats up, too.

Zbeg hit the water an instant later, this as the first five boats of the caravan went up in a string of explosions. He went deep under but somehow managed to fight his way to the surface again. He came up gasping for air and realizing that half his clothes had been burned away in the blast.

Strangely, he saw some of the other people who'd been in the caravan were in the water nearby. This made his absolute panic die down a bit. At least he was not alone! But as he started moving toward them he saw the river creatures again, popping up like from a nightmare, grabbing them, stabbing them repeatedly in their necks and throats, only to disappear back into the black water once their deed was done.

Zbeg was extremely frightened now. He started paddling away from the horror, but he was not a good swimmer and the current was running very fast. To his surprise, he saw one of the cargo loads floating right up to him. It was one of the plastic tubs. Zbeg grabbed onto it for dear life, and it alone prevented him from drowning.

He rode the plastic tub all the way to shore, blocking
his ears when he could so he wouldn't have to hear the terrified screams of his colleagues being killed by the water monsters.

The horror seemed unending. But finally Zbeg was able to push himself up onto dry land, the only survivor of the disaster in the river.

But a bigger surprise was yet to come, because no sooner did he get his wits about him when he heard a voice above him. He looked up to see two men in uniforms with rifles staring down at him. Their faces were highlighted by both twin glows of the riverboats still burning out on the water and the flames coming from Khrash itself not far away.

Zbeg remained frozen with fear as one of the men literally stepped on him to get to the plastic tub that had held just enough buoyancy to save his life. They seemed unconcerned about the seven boats in flames farther out on the river. The soldier ripped the top off the tub and reached inside. But instead of coming out with gobs of ammunition, he had a bunch of batteries and video cassettes in his hand.

“We've been waiting for you,
pasha
,” one of the soldiers said to him. “And you have brought us just what we needed.”

Only then did Zbeg realize these people weren't Americans—he recognized their uniforms. They were Iranian military, just as he was.

But what were they doing on this side of the river?

Captain Dow put the big EC-130 plane into a sharp bank and flew over the Farāh River. He and his crew had spotted the series of explosions about a mile south of Khrash
and thought it was best that they take a look. Flying low, just above the flames, they saw the Ghost Team's SEAL contingent moving about the flaming bits of wreckage making sure they'd killed as many of the caravan's crew as possible.

Dow asked one of the DJs to briefly shine the plane's searchlight down on the SEALs. This was done and they clearly could see some of the SEALs giving them the thumbs-up. Their business had been done here—that, too, was clear by the number of bodies swiftly moving down the river, back toward Iran.

Turning the big plane around again, Dow steered back over Khrash, returning to his orbit station just a minute later. He asked the DJs tostart broadcasting a sound disk known simply as
More Confusing Sounds of War
. This done, they started circling the city once again.

It had been quite a night for the EC-130 crew. Never did they think they'd be putting their aerial psych-out machine to work like this. Their role in all this was to create confusion, something they were well equipped to do and something they'd been doing nonstop since taking off from Obo. But they had also caught glimpses every once in a while of the Ghosts' attack teams on the ground. It was like looking down on a war movie, something real but not, unfolding before their eyes. The damage that the Ghost Team had caused to the old city so far was just astonishing. But the chaos they'd created, with major help from the
Psyclops
crew, was the incredible part.

They could still see streams of Islamic fighters rushing toward the river and the Habeeb Bridge, at the same time they watched as Curry's F-14 continually strafing anything that went over the span, be it a truck, a car, or
someone on a motorbike or on foot. It was almost too horrible for the
Psyclops
crew to watch. The bridge and the road beyond were literally soaked with blood. The carnage was sickening. The Ghosts were used to doing things like this. Not so much the civilian soldiers from Pennsylvania.

As Dow completed yet another loop around the city, the godlike speakers blaring the sound of tanks and big guns and explosions and gunfire, one of the DJs who doubled as an image analyst brought a bunch of photos up to the flight compartment. They showed a panorama of the city, and without a doubt, they could see the battle lines moving east to west, just the way the Ghosts' plan was supposed to go. The smoke and fire were intense—all except in the south end of the city.

This had been a mystery from the beginning. The city of Khrash was literally crawling with Islamic trash, terrorists, hardened fighters, suicide bombers. Yet why would none of them bother to venture to the southern end of the city? If even to hide from the shoestring American assault?

A thought came to Dow as they skirted the edge of the darkened part of the city. Maybe no one was going there because they'd been ordered not to . . . .

Suddenly a bright flash went through the cabin of the airplane. For a split second Dow thought they'd been hit by a SAM. But no warnings sounded, and the plane was still under their control. He looked over at Clancy, who just pointed to their control panel. An amber light right in the middle was blinking.

The White Screen. It had just snapped on. That's what had caused the bright flash.

Dow was out of his seat in a second, quickly making his way back to the rear of the plane.

Murphy was already on the screen when Dow arrived.

Murphy looked both happy and devastated at the same time. “Captain, you have to somehow find Colonel Long immediately,” he said. “We have some very important news about Li . . . .”

It took a very long time for the heavily armed trucks surrounding the battered hotel to leave. Ozzi had spent the time looking down at them, counting them, trying to learn more about them, at the same time painfully aware of what would happen if they ever found him up here alone, with just a few bullets left in his magazine.

This was not a good place to be and he knew it. Whether he and his Zabul squad had moved a lot faster than anyone could have anticipated or they'd simply become lost and didn't know about it, something had gone wrong and now he was alone, in enemy territory, with no idea where he was or how he was going to get out.

Finally the technicals did drive away. He didn't see in which direction—and they could have just moved a bit farther down the street. The heavily armed Al Qaeda types drifted away as well. Ozzi knew this was his chance. Maybe the only one. He had to get off this roof. And he had to find someone friendly, and soon.

He slowly made his way back down to the third level. He looked around and saw nothing but dead mooks everywhere. He peered over the railing to the next two levels below. They, too, were clear. The hotel lobby was dark, another thing going in his favor. At least he could get out of the building without being seen.

He started down the stairs but suddenly felt a sharppain
in his leg. He looked down at his right thigh and saw his pants leg was drenched in blood. He couldn't believe it. He'd been wounded all this time—without even knowing it. And this was no paper cut, either.

He hobbled down the stairs and made the lobby but was out of breath and suddenly very thirsty. He looked out onto the street. All of the lights had gone out by this time. The street was covered with bodies. Dead mooks and the dead women and children they'd first spotted when they got here. The building across the street, the one that Ryder had put a five-hundred-pound bomb into, was still aflame, and this provided the only illumination.

Ozzi checked his rifle once more—again just three bullets left. Then he left the hotel, stepping over the bodies, and began walking in the shadows, not really knowing which direction to go.

He stumbled along for a few blocks, realizing that he was losing blood and losing strength. Every once in a while the EC-130 would fly over, almost directly over his head. But it was flying too high and too fast to spot him. Sometimes he also heard the helicopters close by, but again, they didn't come close enough for him to signal them. And somewhere up there he could hear the F-14s, too.

He was dragging his leg now, the pain turning to numbness. He didn't want to stop because now he felt if he stopped he would die. One thing about the Ghosts. In all their bizarre and highly dangerous operations, their fatality rate had remained extremely low. They'd lost a handful of Delta guys and a pilot when they stopped the attack on the USS
Lincoln
in the Strait of Hormuz; they lost no one during their operations in Singapore and the Philippines. Another pilot died while they were tracking
down the Al Qaeda terrorists who had smuggled Stinger missiles into the United States just a few months ago. This operation so far as Ozzi knew had been lucky, too—except of course they had lost Li . . . .

Ozzi had always thought of the Ghosts as being extremely lucky—and now, as he began to feel even weaker, he was wondering if that luck was starting to run out. At least for him.

He stopped at one corner of the street and looked it up and down. It was like he was standing in an Old West ghost town. The miniwar had passed this place by. He couldn't imagine anyone being within a mile of him.

That's why he was so surprised when he turned the next corner and one block down he saw his Zabul!

He couldn't believe it . . .. He actually wiped his eyes, just to make sure he wasn't hallucinating due to his sucking leg wound.

But he wasn't. There they were, the seven guys of the first squad—the guys who had run into the hotel with him and then disappeared sometime very soon after that. They were greeting a handful of civilians who had somehow survived the fighting and were now wailing with joy that they were still alive and that they'd been rescued by the Zabul.

Ozzi staggered to the middle of the street and called out to them. They spotted him and waved and smiled back.

Damn, I'm going to make it
. . ., Ozzi thought.

At that same moment, one of the civilians, a middle-aged man, embraced the head Zabul officer. As he was doing this, he reached into his shirt and pulled the detonator on the belt of TNT he was wearing around his waist.

The bomb went off a split second later.

It was so powerful, it blew Ozzi back ten feet and landed him on his already painful right leg. When he looked up again, all he saw was bodies, some torn limb from limb, others looking like they were just asleep.

But they were all most certainly dead. All the Zabul. All the civilians and the suicide bomber himself.