Under Siege (12 page)

He went back to the situation map that three men with radios were monitoring. They had gone over the border near Khanaqin, Iraq, and their tanks had consolidated and moved rapidly in single file down the road that led southwest—directly into Baghdad, only eighty miles to the center of the huge city of over five million people. Without any resistance they could be there by nightfall. Where was the vaunted Iraqi army, the Volunteer Divisions that had reportedly intense and complete training? Where were the one thousand tanks that Iraq was supposed to have?

General Majid checked the big situational map display of Iraq again. His lead spearheading tanks were at the twenty-mile mark down the highway and had stopped to let the Panther fighting armored vehicles catch up with them. They had been delayed by small firefights along the way and at four army posts that had been blasted by the tanks but not completely overwhelmed.

At every military target, the lead tanks had fired the anthrax rounds, then circled around the contaminated area. The tankers wore the biological suits to protect themselves.
Half of the men in the Panther fighting machines did as well.

General Majid stared at the display. What if a strong force came at his spearhead from the side? Had he allotted enough men and machines to protect his flanks? He wasn’t sure. His generals had suggested that more tanks might be dropped off on the run southwest to work as a protective barrier along the corridor. He wasn’t sure now how he had reacted.

“General, sir,” a colonel wearing a radio headset said. Majid looked up. “We have reports from the lead elements, the recon tanks, that they have been resupplied and are on the move again. The Panthers are dropping off men along the route to act as security for the corridor. They are asking for more men to replace those, and to build up the protection along the flanks.”

“Colonel, pick the units and send them in. We have the trucks. Get the men there fast, at least a battalion. Move them quickly.”

“Yes, sir. I’m on it at once.”

For the rest of the morning, General Majid watched the battle unfold on the map. His men were pounding the fragile Iraqi forces. The anthrax had put the fear of death into them all. Some of the forces in fixed positions had deserted when they learned of the anthrax shells hitting areas to the east.

The thundering of the big guns kept going as the tanks spearheaded forward. The air war intensified. More Iraqi planes showed up.

“General, sir. I have a report from the spearheading tanks. The commander of that company says that he has lost three of his sixteen tanks. They have been blasted by enemy air. He implores the airmen to intensify their efforts to clear the skies of the Iraq fighters. Evidently some of the Iraqi planes now have laser-guided missiles they are shoot-ins at our tanks.”

“Order up the last squadron and the reserve squadron to get into the air,” the general said. “We can’t afford to lose our lead elements. Throw all of our air power at them now. We can’t wait.”

A major worked another radio and gave the orders. The general paced the small area, looking now and then at the large scale map flat on a table in the center of the room.

“What’s happening at the border? Those first units we hit with the powder?”

Another colonel looked up from a clipboard. “General Majid. Our last report came in ten minutes ago from a man on the ground skirting the contaminated areas. He said there are men lying all over the place. Some are still crawling around. The whole complex is shut down, the roadway is open.”

General Majid remembered the research his scientists had done on anthrax. Everyone within the area would be infected whether asleep or awake. The powder would blow around, contaminating everyone. First the guards on duty would go down with upsets from the massive dose. The others would get sick shortly with a fever, a cough, severe respiratory distress with dyspnea, diaphoresis, stridor, and cyanosis. He didn’t know what those words meant, but his doctor advisors said they were quickly fatal.

Many of the men would die within four hours. Most would be dead in twelve hours. The anthrax would contaminate the area for years.

“The road is open, yes, yes. Good. Get me a company of Rangers as an escort. I’m moving up toward the front. We’ll go around the powder area. Tell the Rangers to shoot anything that moves. Get this rig ready to roll. I want the usual single tank out in front of us. Let’s go.”

Five minutes later the general and his armored twenty-four-foot motor home crossed the border, angled around the white powder area, and then turned back to the highway leading directly to Baghdad. He would have his victory, he
would have his revenge. He would put up two statues in the capital plaza in Tehran honoring his hero sons as soldiers of victory.

He heard the machine guns on the tank ahead clearing out some pocket of resistance. The little caravan halted for five minutes, then moved on.

Ten miles inside Iraq they came to a killed Iranian tank. Two of the crew were still near the tank trying to fix it so they could fight again. General Majid stopped the convoy and went out to talk to the men. They both braced at attention and saluted when he walked up. He returned the salutes and asked their names. They told him, and one was from near his hometown.

“You men are heroes of Iran,” Majid said. “Your heroic efforts will not be forgotten.” He pointed to a major behind him who took down the names and ranks of the two men and their unit. He asked what the trouble was with the tank.

“A rocket-propelled grenade blew the track off on the left side, sir,” the captain and tank commander said. “If we can get some quick repair we could be back in action, but the maintenance unit has raced ahead with the rest of the battalion.”

“New orders, Captain. Stay here and turn your guns to the flank. You’ll be in charge of defending the flank in this area. Blast any Iraqi unit you see moving out there.”

“Yes, sir, we can do that.”

The general moved back to his command vehicle and the convoy ground ahead. By the time they reached the twenty-mile mark inside Iraq, the Lightning Force lead elements had penetrated another ten miles and were pausing for the Panthers to cleanse the area just behind them and catch up. Now Majid could see that trucks had deposited squads of infantry every mile along the corridor to act as security and cover. He nodded. His plan couldn’t fail. With the anthrax obliterating the strong points, and the probing, deadly tanks racing ahead to knock out any other
resistance, he was confident that his troops could be in the outskirts of Baghdad before dark. He shivered just thinking about it. He would turn the city into a huge fireball, a cinder that the Iraqis would remember for generations. Those who lived to remember. It was so close he could almost feel the heat of the flames and smell the smoke.

He had the driver move their convoy up a mile beyond any of the white powder and stepped outside to savor his charge into this hated nation. His top field commander came up with a frown clouding his usually happy face.

“My General, we have a problem. The tank commanders report from the front elements of the Lightning Force that they are completely out of the anthrax shells.”

“Not possible,” Majid thundered. “General Hoseini told me he had over fifty rounds in each lead tank battalion. How could they run out? Ask the tank commanders how many rounds they have used.”

The colonel went back in the mobile tactic center and talked on the radio. He came back shaking his head. “General Majid, sir. The commanders tell me they had only twenty of the blue-painted fused rounds in each tank. They were the biologicals. The rest of the rounds are standard HE.”

Majid’s face flamed red and he stormed into the head-quarters motor home and pounded his fist into his hand. When he turned to the colonel, he was in control again.

“Tell General Hoseini I need to see him here at once.”

The colonel nodded and spoke softly into the headset mike.

“He’s on his way, sir. He is in the field and says it will take him only five minutes to get here.”

Majid stared at the colonel, then turned. “Order up the Third Battalion of T-55s. They should proceed with all speed to reinforce the lead elements. We’re down to conventional weapons now, and it will be a fight. Also alert the trucks. We want to shuttle five thousand ground troops to the thirty-mile
point as soon as possible. We should have two hundred trucks in reserve. Call them up now. I want them at the thirty-mile point before nightfall.”

The colonel bent to his task.

Other men around the large map moved small elements representing Iraqi forces closer to the thirty-mile front. One marker showed a battalion of Iraqi tanks that was only ten miles to the south of the Lightning Forces penetration and moving steadily up the road toward the front lines.

“Get our air power on those enemy tanks,” General Majid said. “I don’t want any of them reaching our forward probe.”

General Hoseini came into the room and it fell silent. General Majid motioned outside and he and the junior general walked well away from the others.

“Hoseini, you told me we had our full order of the bio rounds ready to go.”

“Yes, sir. We made four hundred, and I figured that would be enough. I didn’t know for sure if we would ever use them.”

“How many did I tell you to make?”

“Eight hundred. Enough for fifty rounds for each of the Lightning Force lead tanks.”

“You ran out of material?”

“No, sir.”

“You didn’t have time to make up the rounds?”

“Plenty of time, sir.”

“You reported the entire budget was used, remember that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You stole the rest of the money, about a hundred million rial?”

Hoseini looked away. “Perhaps I made an error, my General.”

“Perhaps you did. How can you make it up to me? You single-handedly have ruined our attack, you have stalled our swift capture of Baghdad.”

“I don’t know how I can make it up to you, General Majid.” He looked away.

“I do,” Majid said. He lifted the Makarov 9mm pistol. “Look at me, General Hoseini.” When Hoseini turned to look at Majid, the commander of all Iranian troops shot Hoseini in the forehead. He pivoted away, landing on his back, dead in an instant. Majid stepped up and fired the last seven rounds from his pistol into the dead general’s chest.

He turned, holstered his empty weapon, and walked back to the command vehicle. He saw a major just outside. “Major, write up a report that General Hoseini has been killed in action as he heroically led a charge against the hated Iraqi. Send a copy of it to his widow.”

Fifteen Miles Inside Iraq

Captain Tariz Aziz felt his heart race as the word came down. They were moving forward. His company of twelve T-55 battle tanks was going on the attack with full combat loads of ammunition. He would see action at last. After the months of intense training and the years in the tank corps. he would at last get to fight for the honor and glory of his country.

“Start the engine,” he barked.

The driver below started the diesel engine and let it warm up as was the usual procedure. One minute later the order came through Captain Aziz’s headphones in his helmet. It was from the battalion commander.

“All tanks move out. Company A through D in order. Single file down the road to Baghdad.” There was a note of triumph in the commander’s voice and Aziz felt the same elation. Now the hated Iraqis would taste the bite of the Iranian tankers, the elite of the army, the leaders in the battles.

“Move out, in order. We follow Company A. Their last tank will have an orange triangle on the back. Follow that tank. We’ll be in single file, and my guess is we’re heading for the front at our best speed. On the road we should be able to maintain at least forty miles an hour. It could be a short trip. Last I had heard the lead elements of our Lightning Units were thirty miles down the road toward Baghdad.”

A cheer went up from the other three men in the tank. He had a driver, a loader, and a gunner for his 105mm cannon.

He did not stand in the open hatch. They had been told to button up for all runs into Iraq. There would be snipers around, since they were doing a dash into the capital, not staging a slow rooting out of every pocket of opposition. He had also been warned to go around any white substance he found on military installations or other important targets. He wasn’t told exactly why, but the word was out that the white substance was anthrax, a biological substance that was deadly. So far they had stayed well to the side of any such areas.

Now, fifteen miles inside Iraq, they would have only fifteen more to get to the front elements. They would serve as backup and to widen the corridor. The orders would come as they slashed ahead. Aziz thought of his wife and three sons at home. They lived in Qom, a medium-sized town near Camp Lightning Thrust, the home of his Third Tank Battalion. It was sixty miles southwest of Tehran, with excellent terrain for his tanks to train and work out military problems and maneuvers. The thought of his three boys brought tears to his eyes. He hadn’t seen them for almost a month now. He had been on extended maneuvers near the border, but he realized now that had only been an excuse to bring all of the country’s firepower into the area where they would attack Iraq. His boys at home were four, six, and eight. The oldest already has said he intended to be a soldier and to try to get in the tank regiment. Aziz could think of no prouder moment. He watched out the view port as they came to the edge of a village. The tank ahead of him did a sudden left turn and skirted around a bunker that had been blasted with a tank round. The whole area was awash with the white powder.

“Around it, around it,” he said into the intercom. “The damn white powder again. Stay well away from it.” They all wore their bio-suits to protect themselves from the powder,
but no one knew just how safe they were. A sniper opened up with an automatic rifle and Aziz could hear the rounds bouncing off the tank’s armor. The rifle fire was no problem, but neither was there any time to root out the shooter. They were past in a pair of minutes. What he didn’t want to see was anyone at the side of the road with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher on his shoulder. One of those rounds could knock the tracks off his tank and leave him a sitting duck.