Mission Compromised (52 page)

“Funny you should mention that. I'm going to take the camera and give you a tour. We've noticed some activity. There's a bunch of Iraqi soldiers—maybe a platoon or as much as a company—that have spread themselves all around us. I don't think they've made us; I think they're just a security force connected to the summit.”

Newman watched as Weiskopf slowly panned the video camera from the northeast where it had been pointing to the right in a clear visual panorama of the summer palace and nearby air base. Newman saw a tower at the edge of the air base, and a curious dark spot near the top. Weiskopf must have noticed it too; the camera jiggled slightly as he stepped just outside the cave. The picture zoomed in on the mysterious spot on the tower. As Newman and the flight crew watched, the image became clearer, and it was obvious that it was a person with a rifle. Newman's mouth went dry as he realized the rifle was aimed at Weiskopf's location.

As if in slow motion, Newman watched as a sudden puff of blue-white smoke and a flash obscured the face of the person on the tower.

A fraction of a second later, Weiskopf's body collapsed, as a bullet smashed through his forehead adjacent to where he had been holding the camera's eyepiece. The video picture slewed as the camera fell to the ground. It ended on its side, pointed at a tilted view of sky, rock, and what looked like part of Weiskopf's camo uniform. “Oh, God, please,” Newman prayed. “Please…”

Within seconds the other ISET Echo team members were spread out in defensive postures, weapons at the ready. “Key” Palmeri crawled to the side of Captain Weiskopf, still crumpled on the ground below the camera. Palmeri checked the captain for vital signs, found none, then carefully turned him to check for the exit wound—and grimaced as he saw that most of the back of Weiskopf's head was missing.

Palmeri eased the camera from beneath Weiskopf 's arm and turned it so he was staring into the lens. He shook his head. He reached for the mike switch on his headset radio and took over the transmission. “He died instantly, sir. Sniper. We're going to have to focus on what's outside… I'll try to get the camera re-mounted and leave it running.”

Back on the flying command post, Newman switched on the intercom and spoke to McDade. “How far out is the UAV?”

“It's still thirty minutes out before it can acquire the LTD.”

Those guys won't be there in thirty minutes.
Newman locked eyes with his EWO. “Call back to General Harris and tell him that our guys on the ground are in contact. Tell him they already have one dead and he needs to send in the F-15s and -16s. We can act as airborne FAC if they can't talk to the guys on the ground.”

Amn Al-Khass Operations Center

________________________________________

Hangar 3, Tikrit Air Base
Monday, 6 March 1995
1434 Hours, Local

 

Hussein Kamil was furious. He shouted at a nearby colonel. “Who authorized that sniper to shoot?” Then he unleashed a torrent of obscenities. “Bring that man to me.”

A few minutes later the sniper was brought in to the hangar. The soldier looked confused—was he being congratulated for the first kill of an American?

“You idiot! Who told you to fire?” Kamil screamed. “Are you the one running this operation?” He drew his automatic pistol and shot the man dead as his stunned and frightened aides looked on. “I will not waste my breath on this pile of camel dung. That bullet is my reminder to the rest of you to
follow orders!
I do not want anyone to act without my authority. Do I make myself clear!?”

Dotensk, who had seen two similar demonstrations of Kamil's cold-blooded rage, could not disagree with his actions this time.

Kamil whirled on Dotensk. “What do you hear from your all-knowing source? Can he tell you what the assassins know?”

“I don't know.” The Ukrainian was hesitant to tell the Iraqi security chief that just moments before the sniper fired, Komulakov had called on the satellite phone to advise that New York had lost the audio feed from Incirlik. “Just as you were dealing with the incident, the audio feed… it went silent. It may be a temporary loss, but I don't know for sure.”

“Well, stay with it. Try and get it back. We need to know the plans of these people!”
The risks of failure were coming more and more into focus now
, Dotensk thought. With the trained infiltrators out there and the raging, murderous security chief in here, he knew he was now fighting for his own life.

Kamil took a breath and walked over and picked up a phone. “Get Qusay on the phone for me.” There was a brief pause. “I know he's in a meeting, you fool. I'm supposed to be there myself. Get him on the phone now. Tell him his father's life may be in danger.”

A moment later, Kamil said, “I have discovered a plot against your father. I'm dealing with it, but for his safety and that of our very important guests, it would be best if you would please immediately escort the President and his distinguished guests away from the palace and to the safety of the secure bunkers at Al Sahra Air Base.”

There was another long pause as Kamil listened to his brother-in-law. “I suspect the Americans or perhaps the British,” Kamil said. “I believe it is an effort to kill many people—including you. I urge you to take the President and our guests out of the palace and to the bunker at Al Sahra immediately. If necessary, I will have the demonstration materials for the guests delivered there.”

Kamil hung up and turned to Dotensk. “If what you told me earlier is correct, there are seven of them left. We must take them out, and then we have to capture the laser-targeting device and aim it at the site where we want their weapon to hit. There is still enough time to do that. Have you been able to re-establish the audio link so we can know exactly what they are up to?”

“Sorry… not yet. Nothing.”

“Then we must act on our own. Major Shahir! Come here.”

The officer hurried over to Kamil.

“Take the company of sharpshooters that you have in position… and more if you need them. Bring in two or three squads with grenade launchers and mortars. Begin now to encircle the assassins and destroy them. But do not destroy their equipment. I need it. Do you hear? Make sure you do not harm their equipment.”

Major Shahir saluted and turned to obey his orders.

 

 

A little more than a kilometer west, ISET Echo was dug in and carefully hidden. The seven surviving members had slipped away from the cave after Captain Weiskopf was killed.

With their commander dead, Key Palmeri assumed the leadership position. “We'll stay on headsets to communicate but try and get as far apart as you can. We have to make sure the LTD does its job. After the UAV hits, there should be enough confusion for us to E and E to the west, toward the rendezvous point. If we can hold 'em off until dark, we'll be able to get to the extraction site. If you end up alone—if no one answers your radio signal—then you know the E and E route to link up with the QRF. By my reckoning,” the lieutenant said, checking his watch, “the UAV ought to be here in twenty-one minutes, right at 1500.”

Palmeri had just gotten into a prone position and wiggled into as much sand cover as possible when a mortar round exploded some thirty yards to his right, just outside the rock outcropping where they had spent the night. A second one followed, and this one detonated right at the mouth of the cave. Rocks and pebbles showered down all around. Two more rounds struck the cave. Now there were rocket-propelled grenades. The explosions continued for several minutes.

When there was a break in the shelling, Palmeri did a radio check to find out if everyone was OK. They were. Palmeri had stayed closest to the laser-targeting system. They had covered the equipment with a small camouflage net and had covered that with scrub vegetation. Just the laser lens itself was visible, and only from a few feet away.

Captain Weiskopf had wisely chosen to separate the antenna for the UAV terminal guidance system and those for the video and audio uplinks that were located near the cave. Palmeri was hopeful that the mortar and grenade explosions had not destroyed the UAV uplink.

He raised his head slowly and for only an inch or so in order to see over the rise in the sandy terrain. What he saw made his guts turn to liquid; the Iraqi troops who had been deployed around the cave were now crouching and moving forward in a wide semicircle. They were being joined by what looked like a company of reinforcements. Soon their ranks were filled so that they appeared as a solid line of soldiers—it reminded Palmeri of an infantry line of the Napoleonic era or one from the Colonial wars. He exhaled so that there was no air passing over his vocal cords when he talked into his headset. “Spray 'em,” he commanded the others. “Try to get as many as you can. Maybe it'll scare 'em back.”

There were muffled sounds as the ISET sprayed the oncoming line of troops with their automatic machine pistols. The flash suppressors and silencers on their weapons all but eliminated the noise and flash of the
muzzle bursts; the Iraqis never saw where the shots came from. More than two dozen fell, and the line hesitated.

The seven men replaced magazines and rolled into new positions, still not visible to the soldiers approaching up the slight incline. Suddenly, a squad equipped with RPGs fired a volley in a pattern with each burst some thirty meters apart. Five or six rounds exploded close to four of the men. Each of them scurried on their bellies toward the nearest explosion, trying to reduce the odds of being hit by the next round.

Palmeri switched on his helmet-mounted radio. “Picnic Base calling Watchdog,” he said as quietly as he could, and hoping that a friendly USAF or Navy aircraft somewhere in the area was listening.

“This is Watchdog. I'm ten klicks from your finger-pointer. Advise.”

“How close is the big bang? We're in a mess of trouble with a company of bad guys coming on strong,” The others continued to fire on the advancing Iraqis, but now ammunition was becoming an issue. They fired in short, well-aimed bursts. Whole squads fell dead and the Iraqis fell back, but only until their officers urged them on

“Picnic Base… stand by.”

Another volley of RPGs slammed into the hillside. Palmeri saw Sears and Maloof go down. Then Diberra and Fernandez were overrun. The ISET couldn't fire fast enough to stop the vastly superior numbers of Iraqis. A moment later, twenty meters to his right, the lieutenant saw Turner, grievously wounded, rise up from his concealed position and stumble toward his attackers, firing his MP-5 from the hip and then, when his ammunition ran out, tossing hand grenades. They cut him down, but not before he had taken eight or ten of them with him. Now, only Palmeri and the Brit were left.

“Picnic Base… be advised that ETA for the firecracker is sixteen minutes. What can we do to help you while you're waiting,” the F-16 pilot asked.

“There are only two of us left, and we have no smoke to mark our pos. If you can home on the UAV beacon, drop down low, you'll see the bad guys. They're coming at us like some Civil War infantry line. Can you lay down some fire and take out enough to make the odds a little more even?”

“Picnic Base… Watchdog responding. Keep your head down; I'm coming in!”

Seven seconds later the F-16 screamed out of the low hills to the north, releasing a GBU laser-guided bomb directly into the line of Iraqi troops. The fighter plane whooshed over Palmeri's head. The plane was so low that when it banked away, Palmeri could see the pilot's face.

The F-16's wingman then made a pass and decimated another line of troops, by now scattering for cover.

From his command post in hangar 3 at the abandoned air base, Kamil watched as the U.S. plane dove and sprayed his troops with devastation. He screamed at the nearest officer to bring some anti-aircraft weapons to bear. Meanwhile, the pilots for the two MI-27 HIND helicopters that would have been able to provide support for his Amn Al-Khass troops were nowhere to be found.

After two passes each, the flight leader of the two F-16s called down to the ISET Echo base. “Picnic Base… this is Watchdog. Advise.”

There was no answer. He climbed in a roaring, soaring arc to thirty-four thousand feet and tried again. “Picnic Base… give me your status. Please advise, Picnic Base.”

Still no answer.

The flight leader then broke away, did a tight turn five miles to the east of the contact, and came back at rooftop height. He aimed his video cameras at the site of the battle and zoomed in. The images were not very
stable, but he knew where the ISET team was located. It had appeared to him that the two of them were either dead or wounded. And now…

“Watchdog… we're all dead.” Palmeri's weak voice came through the pilot's headset. “The Brit took a grenade hit… and I… uh… I c-caught a couple rounds. I'm bleeding bad… won't make it… tell Picnic Leader… a grenade took out… took out the LTD. The laser's gone and I—” Palmeri stopped in midsentence, choking on his own blood.