Sword Point (17 page)

I’ve had enough challenges for the day.

Seemingly by accident, one of the Iranians in the middle of the column noticed something out of the ordinary along the side of the trail. The man stopped and looked toward the unusual object for a moment, then called to one of the officers. The two went over to examine it-a dark-green claymore mine sitting among the sand-colored rocks. Cerro watched the pair while the rest of the column continued into the ambush. Another thirty seconds and the entire column would be in the kill zone and he could spring the ambush.

Just thirty seconds.

The paratrooper holding the detonator for the claymore didn’t give Cerro the thirty seconds. Feeling that the two curious Iranians were close enough, he hit the detonator when they were less than five feet from the mine. The explosion shredded the curious Iranians and caught both ambushers and ambushed off guard. For a moment everyone hesitated. The paratroopers recovered first, cutting loose with a hail of fire and a volley of claymore mines. Those Iranians who survived the first volley were caught in a withering crossfire punctuated by 60mm. mortar explosions. Panicked, they turned away from their attackers and attempted to escape.

Bullets travel faster than a man can run, however. It took a few seconds for the survivors to realize this. Then, seeing no escape and with their leaders down, they turned either to fight to the death or to surrender.

This resulted in confusion as the Iranians desiring to surrender found themselves next to those resisting. The paratroopers didn’t take the time to sort them out at first, firing well-aimed bursts at anything that stood or moved. Only when Cerro ordered a cease-fire did the paratroops take better aim, killing only those who chose to become martyrs.

The firing coming from his flank caught Rahimi off guard. He halted his column for a moment to check his bearings. Satisfied that he was still headed in the right direction, he came to the conclusion that his other column had been hit before it reached the American 115 perimeter.

It was in trouble, but there was nothing he could do to help it.

Besides, its mission was to divert the

Americans’ attention. From the sounds of the fighting, it was doing so. Rahimi continued forward.

The 2nd and 3rd Platoons had just finished rounding up their prisoners and checking the dead when they heard explosions and machine-gun fire from the direction of the landing zone. Even before Lieutenant Kinsley radioed his spot report, Cerro knew what was happening. He looked at his map, then asked Kinsley whether he could hold for ten minutes.

Without hesitation,

Kinsley gave him an affirmative.

Althought he felt uneasy about doing so, Cerro divided his force again.

Leaving a small group to cover the prisoners, he took the balance of his men and began to move toward the sound of the firing. It was his intent to circle around the Iranians and hit them from the flank rather than go head to head with the attackers. He ran the risk of running into an ambush like the one he had just sprung on the Iranians, but there seemed to be no alternative that made sense.

Rahimi drew his men back to regroup. Their first attempt to break the

American perimeter had failed. The fact of the matter was that he had not been able to organize a proper attack. The lead element had stumbled onto the American positions and become involved in a firefight. Before all surprise was lost, Rahimi had rushed forward with his entire force, attempting to bull through, but failed in the face of superior firepower and organization. Seeing no hope of succeeding on the first try, Rahimi broke it off. They had suffered heavy losses. He now had fewer than sixty men and two dozen mortar rounds. If they didn’t succeed on their second attempt, there wouldn’t be enough for a third.

While his men gathered, he listened for signs that the fight to his rear was still going on. There were none. Not wanting to be surprised, he sent a small detachment back to provide security.

As the two platoons moved forward, Cerro kept contacting Kinsley for updates. Neither one knew for sure why the Iranians had broken contact or what they were up to. There was the very real possibility that the Iranians were turning against Cerro’s column. If that was the case, Kinsley was to remain in place. The second lift was due in momentarily. The landing zone had to be held.

As a precaution against surprise, Cerro had his two platoons disperse.

Advancing in a line, they could go over to the attack or assume a hasty defense if attacked. Cerro could feel the tension building as they approached. Every step took them closer to an unseen enemy who might or might not be waiting for them the way Alpha Company had waited for the first Iranian column. Their current situation suddenly reminded him of a great game of hide-and-seek. It was a hell of an analogy. But at that moment it was true.

Wanting to get on with it, Rahimi gave the signal. The two mortars began to choke down their first rounds as two heavy machine guns hammered away at the American positions. With a yell, Rahimi raised his arm and led his men forward. The first burst of American return fire hit him square in the chest, throwing him back against one of his own men. The militiaman eased his leader down and asked what he could do to help. Rahimi, gasping, simply told him to go forward in the defense of Islam. After the militiaman left, Rahimi fought off any fears or doubts about his impending death. He was, after all, dying as Iman Husain had died, in the defense of Persia and

Islam. What more could a man ask for?

Rahimi did not hear the sound of Lieutenant Cerro’s attack or the approach of attack helicopters that were the vanguard of the American follow-on forces. His death preceded those of his men by mere minutes.

They had failed. The American airhead held.

Fort Hood, Texas 1905 Hours, 11 June (0105 Hours, 12 June,
GMT
) Major Dixon was clearing away the last of the day’s work from his desk.

All those items he had worked on but had not completed were returned to their proper folders and filed away in his lower-right desk drawer.

Those items that were new but hadn’t been acted on went back into his in box. He’d deal with them in the morning. Finally, those items he either didn’t want to deal with or didn’t know what he would do with were lumped together and thrown into a box labeled
TOO
HARD
.

Content with his shuffling of papers, Dixon was preparing to leave when the phone rang. For a moment he debated whether he should answer it or simply go. His mind had become fried after dealing with a mishmash of deployment issues. It amazed him how ridiculous and misguided some of the division staff could be. On one hand he had to prepare the battalion for war when his equipment was already loaded and en route to Iran, and on the other he was being required to schedule time for inventories of station property the unit would leave behind when it finally did deploy. Fighting the urge to walk away, Dixon answered the phone with a slurred, disheartened “S-three, 3rd of the 4th Armor.”

“Scott, Michaelski.” It was the brigade S-3. “I thought I’d give you a heads-up. Orders are coming in now at Corps. We roll in fourteen days.”

Dixon remained silent. “Scott, you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m here. Is this good poop or rumor?”

“It’s fact. Word is the Russians are headed south at full speed and the people in Washington are getting a little nervous with nothing on the ground but grunts.”

Dixon thought about that for a moment. “Will our equipment be there?”

The Navy assured the corps commander it will. In order to save time, the convoys haven’t been running zigzag in the Atlantic. We also have permission to move them through the Suez. It will be there.” The brigade

S-3 seemed so sure.

“Is there anything we need to do right away? You planning any briefings or other bull tonight?”

“No, Scott, nothing. We won’t have hard copy on this till morning.

I’ll be ready to talk to the S-threes sometime in the early afternoon.

See you then.”

“OK. Thanks for the warning, Mike. See you then.” Dixon hung up the phone and looked at his watch. Time to go home. The next few days would surely be zoo time. Getting up, he put on his hat, pulled all the papers from the box labeled Too
HARD
and dropped them into the trashcan as he walked out of his office.

Shoot first and inquire afterward and if you make mistakes, l will protect you.

-
HERMANN
GORING

In the Arabian Sea 0332 Hours, 16 June (0002 Hours, 16 June,
GMT
) The sleek gray frigate slid through the night with ease. Its decks were deserted and stripped clear of all but its weapons. The gun encased in its automated turret stood motionless but ready. Canisters sat benign, hiding sophisticated missiles the way a cocoon hides a wasp. The breaking of waves and the steady hum of machinery were the only outward signs that the ship was alive. Only in the center of the frigate, where its heart and mind were, was there a semblance of activity. There, in a small room called the combat information center, men sat before electronic devices, watching and listening to sensors that monitored the air and the sea about and below them.

To the casual observer it would have been difficult to tell whether the equipment was an extension of the senses for the men who sat before it or whether the men were simply another piece of the equipment. If the latter was true, then the man was the least reliable and most error-prone portion of the equipment. Somewhere in every system a man, susceptible to all the frailties that humans possess, was a part of it.

The most complex computers and processors of combat information that are capable of spewing out data in nanoseconds dump it eventually on a human who has to see, consider and decide what it means and how to use it.

The job of the men in the combat information center was to find an elusive submarine that had been stalking the carrier battle group they had been assigned to protect. This was not a simple task. The sea, far from being uniform and even, complicated the efforts of the frigate’s crew with currents and thermal layers that hid and distorted sounds of creatures and things that passed through them. While the use of active sonar would ease the task of searching the sea, it would be akin to a hunter stomping through the woods and announcing his presence. So the frigate moved across the sea quietly, like a cat seeking a prey, its ears perked up and alert for any sign of movement or noise, sliding into the darkness.

Below the frigate a shadow passed undetected. The Oscar-class submarine’s propeller turned ever so slowly, providing only enough motion to keep the vessel on course and under control. Captain Gudkov found it hard to believe his good fortune. After two weeks of effort he was finally penetrating the escort screen of the American carrier battle group he had been stalking.

The vessel’s navigator, with little better to do as the submarine bobbed and weaved to break contact after one of the failed attempts, reviewed their movements over the previous two weeks and those of the carrier battle group. He found what appeared to be a pattern to the wanderings of the carrier battle group. When the navigator showed his findings to Captain

Gudkov, the captain began to work on a way of using the discovery to accomplish his mission. Anything was worth a try.

While the crew rested after another failed attempt followed by a ten-hour pursuit, Gudkov and his navigator worked up a plan. The navigator, projecting the probable course of the American carrier battle group based on the pattern he had observed, estimated when the center of the group, where the carrier would be, would pass over a certain point. Assuming that the carrier battle group would follow a set pattern, Gudkov estimated where the Iskra could find the carrier at any given time. By being placed along the projected path of the carrier, the

Iskra could shut down its engines and allow the carrier and its escorts to pass over the silent submarine without detecting it.

Gudkov thought the plan over and discussed it with his officers. Most, already frustrated with their failures, were willing to try anything.

The political officer was a little uneasy about trusting so much to luck, guesses and rough calculations. But, though a good submariner in his own right, he did not have the knowledge or the experience to prove Gudkov wrong. In the end, he threw his lot in with the rest. Anything was worth try. Besides, if it worked once, they would be able to repeat the maneuver if, and when, hostilities were initiated.

The Iskra’s entire crew had been on edge since they shut down their engines and settled in to wait. It was important to maintain control of the vessel while minimizing their signature. The engines were used sparingly and only when needed. There was a hush throughout the submarine when they detected the passing of the first American escort above them. The noise of the frigate’s engines and the turbulence it made passing through the water were easily detected by the Iskra’s sensors. The crew waited apprehensively as the frigate approached, passed nearby, then left without any sign that it had detected the Iskra. The crew was elated, barely suppressing the urge to cheer. They had succeeded. Less than an hour later, another escort passed, causing the crew to tense up as it approached, then relax when it passed without incident.

Shortly after the second escort passed, the noise of a large vessel could be detected. Gudkov listened as the sonar operator relayed information to the Iskra’s weapons officer concerning the new contacts.

It took only a few seconds for him to compare and confirm from computer-stored data that they were in the presence of the carrier that had eluded them so long. Success.

But now 122 the hard part began. Finding the carrier was one thing, maintaining contact quite another. The Iskra was now in the center of the American carrier battle group. The ships accompanying the carrier would, in all probability, be less vigilant than the escort frigates.

Gudkov, however, had to exercise extreme caution when he increased power and began to follow the carrier. Even though hostilities between the U.S. and the
USSR
had not been declared, a Soviet submarine in their midst might cause the Americans to overreact or make an error. A bad call on one man’s part could mean the end of the Iskra. Nor did the Iskra dare raise its antenna to receive the prearranged code word that would tell Gudkov whether or not they were about to go to war.