Force of Eagles (42 page)

*

Kamigami made a stay-motion at Jamison and moved toward the back of the building looming in front of them. The lieutenant sank to the ground, thankful for any rest. He was on the verge of exhaustion after following the sergeant major through the hills that offered them a rough path into Kermanshah. He had never credited the stories making the rounds in the battalion about Kamigami and had always chalked them up to the lore the enlisted troops used to scare lieutenants like himself. According to the rumor mill, twenty-mile forced marches were child’s play for the sergeant. Now Jamison was wondering how much else that was impossible was true.

The lieutenant caught his breath and tried to fix their position. Judging by the lights and the noises in the distance, he estimated they were on a hillside on the outskirts of Kermanshah, no more than two kilometers away.

A babble of voices erupted from the other side of the building and lights sent a glow over the roofline. Jamison was sure someone had seen or heard the sergeant and drew his pistol, a newly issued 9mm automatic. He tried to find Kamigami but couldn’t see a thing. Then a man wearing a ragged suit coat and stocking knit cap pulled down to his ears walked around the corner of the building and looked directly at the spot where the lieutenant had last seen Kamigami. The lieutenant rolled into a prone position and sighted over the barrel. He thumbed the safety to off and then moved back to the hammer, ready to cock the weapon.

Which was when a heavy weight hit him in the back and knocked the breath out of him, and a hand clamped over his mouth and the pistol was twisted out of his grip.

*

Eastern Turkey

Lieutenant Colonel Leon Nelson was pleased with his crew. After the AWACS had launched out of Incirlik, he had briefed them on the coming flight and how they, Delray 51, would be supporting Operation WARLORD. Then something had clicked with every man and woman on-board and a precision he had never seen took hold. The hand-controller at the number three console was hanging up and the operator could not roll the ball full left. Within minutes, the computer technician had it fixed. As the mission developed, Nelson could hear it in their voices. They were committed to WARLORD.

Nelson called up the tactical display that reached out 250 nautical miles. The C-130s and the four escorting F-15s were strung out in a line snaking through the mountains. He rolled the hand-controller and the cursor moved over the lead return. He called for identification and information flashed on the screen; call sign Cowboy 31, type F-15, speed 280 knots, altitude 7,250. That’s slow and only about four hundred feet above the ground, he thought. He watched two fighters set up a racetrack pattern in front of the C-130s, and for a moment he was jealous and wished he was there…anywhere, even in one of the four orbiting F-15s that had to stay behind.

Then he called for a status report on the Iranian air defense. All was quiet. He keyed up the close-in display and watched the two F-111s break out of orbit and move through the mountains. Again he rolled the cursor over the returns and called for identification. They were Mover 21 and 22, F-111F, 480 knots, altitude 7,600 feet. A little high, he calculated, they must have their terrain-following radar set at seven hundred fifty feet. That’s going to be a problem if the Iranians are awake.

The crackle of a UHF radio transmission came through Nelson’s headset. “Mover Two-Two. Aborting.”

“Mover Two-Two,” Von Drexler’s voice came over the UHF, “this is Mover Two-One. Say emergency.”

That’s a dumb call from Mover 21, Nelson thought, there’s nothing he can do about it. He should simply call for the backup F-111 in orbit to head his way and clear Mover 22 off. What the hell is Mover Two-One hesitating for?

“Yaw Channel light,” came the tight reply from Mover 22. “RTB at this time.” A telelight was on, warning the crew that one of the triple redundant flight-control channels had failed. But the crew didn’t need a light to tell them that. The trim had run full left and they both fought to hold the stick centered and the aircraft under control until the pilot could hit the trim-control switch. They would have their hands full flying the jet at high altitude and the landing was going to be dicey.

Nelson watched the two blips on his screen turn back toward the west. What the hell, they’re both aborting…

*

“Ramon, my lad. I think duty calls.” Torch Doucette had copied the same radio transmissions. They were hooked up on a tanker and topping off their fuel. Doucette called for a disconnect, and in one graceful maneuver broke out of orbit by rolling the F-111 into a 135 degree bank and pulled the nose over into a 45-degree dive. He reversed and headed for the border. “We got some time to make up if we’re going to catch up.”

Contreraz’s hands flew over his keyboard feeding the backup route into their navigation computer. “We’re going to have to take the scenic route, more direct, saves us three minutes over Von Drexler’s route. We’ve still got to go like a stripe-assed ape at five-forty knots to hit the jail house on time.”

“Rog, can do.” Doucette set the terrain-following altitude at four hundred feet and the ride-control at hard. “I’ll squeak it lower in the valleys,” he apologized. “Ah, duty is a terrible burden.”

“Better tell Delray our intentions,” Contreraz said.

Doucette agreed and keyed his radio. “Delray Five-One, Mover Two-Three is inbound at this time.”

Von Drexler’s voice answered. “Mover Two-Three, this is Mover Two-One, return to orbit, we are aborting.”

“You are aborting, asshole,” Doucette grumbled over the intercom. He controlled his anger before he hit the radio transmit button. “Roger, Mover Two-One, understand we are to continue single ship.” He broke the transmission. “I hope that puckers his asshole, otherwise it’s going to be a mess in his cockpit. Ramon, you got a checklist for shit in the cockpit? But maybe I’m being too hard on the boy when all he needs is a little motivation.” He keyed the radio. “Ah, Mover Two-One? This is Mover Two-Three.” The sarcasm in his voice was clear aboard the listening AWACS. “We’re going to be on time. How ’bout
you?
” The sarcasm had turned to steel.

*

A ragged cheer broke out among the AWACS controllers when the radar blip that was Mover 21 turned back to the east. Nelson jotted down some notes in his log before he keyed his interphone. “Did we tape those last radio calls from Mover flight?”

The reply was comforting. “Roger, Colonel. We got it all.”

Chapter 46: H Plus 10

The Pentagon

The President had returned to the Command and Authority Room and was looking out over the National Military Command Center. Cunningham glanced over his shoulder and saw the apprehensive look on his commander’s face. “I’m worried too,” he said to no one in particular.

“Pardon, sir?” his aide Dick Stevens said.

“Nothing. Dick, if Miss Rahimi is still here, ask her if she’d care to join me.”

“I saw her about twenty minutes ago. I’ll find her.” Stevens left, knowing full well that the general had something in mind and wasn’t just being polite asking for her.

“Your attention, please,” a woman’s voice came over the loud-speaker. The professional-sounding voice demanded attention. “We have established contact with the command-and-control element aboard the AC-130 gunship, call sign Spectre Zero-One, via satellite communications. You may monitor communications or speak with Roundup on channel one.” Roundup, they knew, was Mado’s personal call sign as the joint task force commander. Every hand in the room toggled the switch for channel one to the on position.

“…we are encountering scattered clouds, bases five hundred to a thousand feet.” Cunningham recognized Thunder Bryant’s voice. “Forward visibility is ten miles and improving—”

Leachmeyer interrupted. “Let me speak to Roundup.”

“This is Roundup, go ahead.” Mado’s voice sounded strained.

“Current status?” Leachmeyer asked.

That wasn’t very cool, Cunningham thought, for sure no way to impress the President.

“We are on time. However, we have deviated from the mission as planned…Mover Two-Two aborted and was replaced by Mover Two-Three, which is ingressing on a different route in order to make up time.” Cunningham was more worried about the sound of Mado than any slight change in the plan. “Please standby, we have just established contact with Romeo Team.” The command center was absolutely silent. “Romeo Team reports they are in place but two men have become separated and have not reestablished contact.”

“Who are the men?” It was the President’s voice.

“Lieutenant Jamison and a sergeant.”

“Name, damnit.”

Well, Cunningham thought, the Pres isn’t too cool himself. I hope to hell he doesn’t start trying to run the show just because he can talk to someone there.

“A Sergeant Kamigami,” Mado answered.

Cunningham heard a gasp behind him. It was Dewa. He looked to the President, who was now on his feet, as though he were standing at attention.

*

Kermanshah, Iran

“Quiet. Don’t move.” It was Kamigami’s voice next to his ear. Jamison felt the massive weight roll off him and the hand pull away from his mouth. He could breathe again. The two men lay side-by-side and watched the man disappear around the corner of the building in front of them.

“What happened?” Jamison asked, his voice pitched low, not quite a whisper. Kamigami shook his head and the two did not move. The loud wail of a muezzin calling the faithful to prayers came over a loudspeaker in the town below them.

“Morning prayers,” Kamigami said. “Move.” He pointed to the left, across an open space. The two men came smoothly to their feet and Jamison followed the sergeant, surprised at how soundlessly the big man could move. The cover of darkness they had relied on was giving way to the soft hues of morning twilight, and Jamison could see the town stretched out off to their right. “There.” Kamigami dropped down into a dry stream bed that had down-cut a channel around a boulder. “We wait here.”

Jamison dropped down beside the boulder and cautiously looked around. They were near the bottom of a low hill and he could see the small city of Kermanshah to the south of their hiding place. On the far side of the city, perhaps two miles away, he could make out the prison. “We’re on the wrong side of town,” he told Kamigami, and pulled back into the shadows. Kamigami took his place and grunted when he saw the prison.

“Sarge, what in the hell happened back there?”

“Stirred up a rat against the wall…it ran into the house…I moved on when I heard all the commotion inside…Then you tried to shoot the poor bastard. He was just trying to figure out where the rat came from. Couldn’t really discuss it at the time so I just took your weapon.” The sergeant handed him the Browning. “If we’d made any noise I would’ve had to kill him and I didn’t want to do that.”

“It’s going to be hard for us to move during daylight. How do we get from here to the prison?”

“People are going to keep their heads down when the bombs start falling and the gunship works the prison over. We move right through the town, maybe borrow a car—something’s coming.” Kamigami raised his head above the gully, keeping his head in the shadow cast by the rock. It was almost sunrise. “Not good.”

A twelve-year-old boy was guiding a small herd of goats across the hillside. He was using a long stick to prod the goats along, humming some tuneless song. Kamigami unsheathed the big black anodized Bowie knife he chose to carry as he watched the boy come straight at them.

*

Western Iran

“Turn point in thirty seconds,” Von Drexler’s WSO announced. “We’re five minutes out of the Initial Point.” The WSO could hear the lieutenant colonel breathing over the intercom, his breath coming in ragged pants. “We’ll be flying down a mountain valley and we’ve got enough light to squeak it down a couple hundred feet.”

Von Drexler didn’t answer. He was trying to concentrate on the routine of flying but his restless mind kept jerking him back to one overwhelming fact—they were flying over hostile territory—a land owned by a people who hated Americans and would kill him if he was captured. He berated himself for trying to develop Mado as a sponsor, someone to back him for promotion. Von Drexler remembered all too well the first private conversation with the general at Nellis…Mado had promised him that Task Force Alpha was nothing but a cover for the real mission.

“Turning now,” the WSO said, the flight computer and autopilot did the work. Von Drexler should have dropped down to four hundred feet and threaded their way down the valley well below the mountain peaks. It would only take a few tweaks on the autopilot, overriding the flight-computer with slight heading changes. And it would have dropped them underneath a hawk that was soaring high above the valley in search of early morning prey.

The hawk sensed the approaching jet before she saw it, folded her wings back and swooped for the ground. She had only dropped twenty feet when they collided. The hawk was a small female and weighed slightly more than a pound, but the impact forces were horrendous. The bird disintegrated when it struck the left-hand glove, the shrouding that streamlined the air flow where the leading edge of the wing pivoted next to the fuselage. Most of the hawk was sucked into the intake of Von Drexler’s number-one engine.

Both men felt the impact and saw a slight RPM fluctuation on the left engine, little more than a hiccup. “Bird strike,” the WSO said, relieved to see everything normal.

Von Drexler scanned his instruments, took a breath, and made a decision. He keyed the radio and transmitted in the blind. “Mover Two-One aborting, repeat aborting.”

Doucette’s voice: “Say emergency.”

“Bird strike. Left engine.” Von Drexler had hit the panic-button.

“Roger,” Doucette replied, “run your emergency checklist and if the RPM and oil pressure are within limits, press ahead.” He was trying to calm the man, but Von Drexler had already reversed course and was climbing.