Force of Eagles (28 page)

“Half is better than nothing,” Camm said, “especially after a fumbled rescue attempt by Defense. Our stock with the President should go sky-high when we salvage something out of the shambles. The public and Congress will be more than happy to settle for half a loaf. But not before then…Is Delta Force ready?”

“Yes, sir, but they’ve been compromised. A sergeant…went home on emergency leave, got drunk and started bragging in a bar—”

“Our
source
?”

“The woman Jihad agent we turned. After interrogating Askari, he’s the Jihad who tried to kidnap Stansell, we put her onto the Albanian diplomat who was Askari’s contact. Seems he’s horny and likes to impress her.”

The cracking of the Islamic Jihad ring was paying results. “What about the Air Force’s Task Force Alpha?”

“They’re still clean, although who knows what they’re doing out there in the desert…Mr. Camm, we have not disseminated the intelligence on the compromise of Delta Force or the current status of the POWs.”

Camm leaned back in his chair, thinking about his next move. He considered himself a loyal, dedicated person who put the interests of his country above all else. He also believed the long-term interests of the United States would be better served by a strong and effective CIA capable of carrying out covert operations free of what he considered partisan political interference. If Deep Furrow could rescue half of the POWs and convince the President that unrestricted covert operations should be run by loyal and dedicated professionals like himself, well, he would have made a giant stride toward reaching that overarching goal. If pressed on the matter, he would agree that ends-justify-the-means was a hard necessity in hard-ball, head-on-head intelligence…

“The President has got to be told about the compromise of Delta Force. Sanitize our source so I can tell Mr. Burke without revealing how we learned about it. Maybe an intercepted phone call between the Albanians and Iranians.” Should he also pass on what had been learned from Deep Furrow about the POWs? “The other information from Kermanshah…is it one source only?” Fisher nodded. “We’d better not pass that along then until we can confirm it.” He wanted no questions raised that might lead to his Deep Furrow operations.

That, after all, was his future.

*

Texas Lake, Nevada

Command Sergeant Major Victor Kamigami was puzzled when he heard that Romeo Team was switching to MT-1X parachutes. He wanted to know why the change in plans. His curiosity got the better of him when he heard they were going to be using oxygen. That had to mean a high-altitude drop. He decided to get involved when a Ranger from Romeo Team bragged that they would be using high-altitude opening techniques. Rather than sound out his officers—Gregory could be evasive at times—he had done what any CSM would do…he had gone to another E-9. In this case, Chief Pullman.

The anger Kamigami felt when Pullman had fitted all the pieces together for him never surfaced. Just what the hell were they trying to do without telling him! Pullman had sensed the CSM’s anger, knowing how he would feel in the same position. “Sorry,” he had told Kamigami, “I thought your officers briefed you. Otherwise I would’ve back-doored ’em and filled you in.”

“I’m going along,” Kamigami had said. “Can I borrow your jeep?” It was a long conversation for the CSM. Pullman drove the CSM over to the C-130s in time for the final phase of mounting a high-altitude-high-opening airdrop using the MT-1X.

Trimler found a spot near Kamigami’s jeep to watch the jump-master organize the stick. Kamigami walked over to a trailer to pick out a parachute.

“I guess he wants to go along,” Pullman said.

Trimler gave Pullman a sideways glance. “He teaches five-hundred-pound gorillas how to go where they want.”

After being rigged the CSM got in line for a safety inspection. The men in front suddenly fell out because they were not satisfied with some minor detail, and Kamigami moved quickly to the head of the line. The jumpmaster gave him a thorough inspection, starting at his helmet and finishing with the rucksack’s lowering line.

“Who’s the Romeo Team navigator?” Kamigami asked. The jumpmaster pointed to Baulck, who was talking to Drunkin’ Dunkin, the C-130 navigator, explaining the KNS-81 tacan set that was strapped to his parachute harness. Kamigami nodded approval. Baulck would be the first man out and use the small olive-drab box to home on a portable tacan station set up on the drop zone.

Again he scanned the operation. Everything was going smoothly and according to procedures. But it was too much the routine drill of an exercise, lacked the fire and urgency he had experienced when Urgent Fury, the airdrop on Grenada, had been mounted in October of ’83. He needed to change that.

“
Move
,” he barked.

*

The Pentagon

“I feel like the tits on a boar hog,” Stansell mumbled. Captan Don Williamson chose to ignore that and go about his duties at the Watch Center. The colonel had been hanging around the back offices since late Monday, monitoring the situation in Iran and waiting for a call from Cunningham’s office. Actually, the captain liked the short colonel and his dry sense of humor.

“Colonel,” Williamson said, “I’ve got some interesting traffic out of Tehran. The IRP, Islamic Republican Party, is getting cozy with the IPRP. Seems they’re getting ready to swap some POWs around.” He handed Stansell the printout of an intercepted message from the headquarters of the IPRP in Tehran. It set bells ringing.

“Don, can you get a secure line to Nellis? I need to talk to my people out there.” Twelve minutes later Jack Locke’s scratchy voice came over the secure telephone in the battle cab overlooking the main floor of the Watch Center.

“Jack, I need to talk to Dewa.”

“Take a few minutes, sir. I’m in the command center at Nellis. Hold on.” Locke was quickly back on the line. “She’ll be here in a few minutes. Colonel, I want the F-15s to escort a string of C-130s along a low-level route and go right under a HICAP of F-4s. But the weather has to cooperate and I need a cloud deck between the F-4s and F-15s. The ROE are that the F-4s can engage anytime they get a visual contact on the F-15s or C-130s. But the F-15s can only engage when they’re jumped. The F-4s will operate under the same type of control the Iranians use.”

“What’s the purpose, Jack?”

“I’m betting the F-15s can sneak the C-130s right under the F-4 CAP undetected but that their fangs will hang out and they’ll zoom up through the cloud deck to engage the F-4s leaving the C-130s unprotected. Then I’ll jump the C-130s with an F-4. I’ll record it on the VCR through the HUD. That ought to get the attention of the Eagle drivers.”

Stansell hesitated. What Locke was proposing was aggressive and maybe dangerous. He knew from personal experience that so-called Dissimilar Air Combat Tactics was a dicey thing with built-in hazards. He wanted to think about it, but he was running out of time and delaying a decision was not good for morale—he had to trust his people.

“Considering the Iranians fly F-4s, sounds like a good idea. If you can make it work, do it.”

“Thanks, and here’s Dewa.”

“Dewa, I’ve seen a message here that suggests the POWs may be traded off…”

“I’ve seen the same intercept. Rupe, it won’t be long”—the scrambler could not hide the concern in her voice—“I’d say in the next three or four days.”

“Any back-up for that estimate?”

“No, but it’s not just intuition, either. I mean, there’s a rhythm to the way the Iranians work. It’s sort of a cultural thing. It’s going to happen very soon, and if we don’t hurry the well is going to dry up before we get there.”

“Okay, I’ll start pressing harder from this end. How’s Mado doing? Staying out of people’s hair?”

“I always thought it was a joke about having a well-laid look. The general’s got it. We don’t see much of him.”

“Sounds encouraging, I’ll be talking to you.”

*

When the call from Cunningham’s office came five hours later at 8:30 P.M. Stansell hurried out of the basement and up the long corridors to E ring, to the offices of the Air Force Chief of Staff. He found Cunningham sipping a cup of tea. Somehow an incongruous brew for Sundown. “Sorry for the delay, Rupe. I’ve been putting out a forest fire today—some congressmen haven’t got a clue. Okay, Dick tells me you’ve got a major change to WARLORD.”

Cunningham was relaxed and alert. The hard-driving profane front was gone, a sign that Stansell had been accepted by the general into his command inner circle. Stansell outlined the changes Locke and Trimler were proposing, plus Dewa’s concern about the POWs being traded off within the next few days.

“You trust her judgment?” Stansell nodded. “Anyone else agree with her?”

“An analyst in the Watch Center, Captain Don Williamson.”

“I know Williamson.” The general noted the surprised look on Stansell’s face. “One of my jobs is to identify promising officers and see that they get the right sponsorship. This Air Force is full of people like Simon Mado—competent as hell, in many cases the work they do is absolutely indispensable. The way he’s arranged to get Task Force Alpha into Turkey is brilliant. But his kind still tends to be more concerned with developing a political base for promotion and bureaucratic games than the mission.”

“And General Mado has chosen the JSOA as his political base,” Stansell observed.

“Exactly. Rupe, I’m tired of seeing rational, well-balanced colonels go off the track the moment they pin on stars. It tells me we’re promoting the wrong people. I remember an old saw about the best colonels never get promoted. I want to change that. That’s why I look for people like Williamson. But for now, Mado is the best man I’ve got for the job. Like I said, he’s done good on this end. He may be a bureaucratic animal but he’s qualified for command and deserves his chance.”

The general did not mention that having Mado as the joint task force commander was also a bureaucratic gambit that accomplished two things: it appeased Leachmeyer while it gave him access and some control over Task Force Alpha. Cunningham also had to play bureaucratic chess, and Simon Mado was one of his pieces. Stansell knew the general made sense, but he wished Mado had seen combat and been shot at for real.

“Enough of all that,” Cunningham went on, “let’s take a hard look at where we’re at.”

*

An hour later Cunningham jabbed at a button on his intercom, summoning his aide. “Dick, we need to set up a meeting with the President tomorrow. The subject is the POWs. Get Mado here tonight and contact Ben Yuriden. Tell him it’s urgent I see him ASAP.”

The general spun his chair and looked out a window. “We’re done playing games. I want the POWS out and I don’t give a damn who does it. But Task Force Alpha is now going to be a real option for the President to consider.”

Chapter 28: D Minus 7

Saqqez, Iran

The children scampered around Carroll as he walked around inside the walled compound on the outskirts of Saqqez. The ZIL-157 trucks were parked haphazardly in the yard, mostly against the back wall, and no one had made many attempts to organize the Kurds. The women had carved out whatever space they needed, cooking fires had been started, and a semblance of Kurdish tribal life magically mushroomed in the large one-storied structure that served as a garage, warehouse and parking lot.

Carroll estimated that about half of the group had been dropped off in villages and farms once they had crossed the border into Iran. Mustapha said they would stay in Saqqez until it was safe to return to Iraq and then would pick up their people and arms caches on the way back. The Kurds were casual when it came to doing the impossible—like sneaking across the border by driving the trucks at night through what looked like an impassable mountain river gorge. Of course, they did everything with endless chatter. Carroll liked the Kurds.

But Zakia…she seemed to possess an independence and special position that was outside the flow of normal tribal life. Maybe it was because she was a doctor. Carroll wandered over to the room she had appropriated for a temporary infirmary and her quarters and found her bandaging the hand of a man he had never seen before. No reason to be suspicious, she had, after all, treated many Kurds along the way, but this man seemed to be in a hurry to leave once she had finished and did not join with the men in any conversation.

Carroll looked around the room, the largest in the compound. A charcoal fire was burning in the corner fireplace. “They treat you special,” he said.

She ignored the remark. “Stay if you’re hungry. Food is on the way.” A few minutes later a woman brought in two sticks of shish kebab and some of the pizzalike, thin round bread that he loved when it was freshly baked. He pulled the meat off the skewer and folded it up in the bread. Zakia did the same and they ate in silence. “Bill, please come and see me later this evening when things have quieted down.…”

The compound was mostly settled in for the night when he returned to her infirmary and found Zakia sitting on a rug, her back against a chest in front of the slowly dying fire. She had brushed out her hair, the glow of the fire catching the highlights when she turned toward him. She patted the spot beside her, sharing a blanket.

“You’re not one of them,” Carroll said.

“Why do you say that?”

“The women are open and friendly but still very much a part of the family. If you were Mustapha’s cousin or a member of the tribe we would never be left alone together.”

“It took you long enough to figure that out. You are very slow at times.”

“Zakia, about that night…”

“I know,” she said in English, surprising him.. “It was a moment. We both had a need. I doubt it will happen again.” The fire flared, catching their attention…“Bill Carroll, what are you doing here?”

“It’s a long story…” He stared into the fire. How could he tell her about the mix of emotions that lay behind any answer? Would she understand what drove him on? Who would believe that a sense of duty and commitment could blend with a hunger for revenge, and love, too.