The Red Horseman (39 page)

“I just watched Saddam on the tube.”

“Yeah. They’re in a dither here. They’re
pissed that you gave the story to the Post and I had
to admit I authorized it. So they’re peeved at
me. If I weren’t black they would have fired me.”
He indulged himself in an expletive.
“Anyway, Saddam isn’t cooperating. He
denied he has nukes, so now the fact that there is
no independent confirmation has them in a sweat.”

“So no air strike?”

“No air strike,” Land said wearily.

“Saddam has put his forces on alert,” Jake
said. “It’ll take four or five days to bring them
up to full alert, so whatever we’re going to do we
must do quickly. Every hour that goes by is going to cost us
lives.”

“I know that,” Land said.

“The German expert thinks that Saddam could have the
stolen missiles ready to launch in hours, if they
aren’t ready to go now.”

Land didn’t respond. In a moment he said,
“These people here are trying to figure out a way to blame
this mess on George Bush. He had his chance
to stomp this cockroach and didn’t, so now they have
to dirty their shoes with it.”

“Yessir. Should Yocke do another story?”

“Your staff reporter? No. Not right now. They
would lock me out of the White House if that happened.
Soooo … I want you to plan an assault on
that airfield. Figure out what it will take, when you
can do it, what it will cost.” Jake knew that
when Hayden Land talked cost, he wasn’t talking
dollars: he was talking lives. “Then call me
back. If you and Loy think an assault is
feasible, my idea is for you to take some network
camera teams along. If we treated the world to a
live broadcast showing the Russian missiles and
warheads that Saddam says he doesn’t have, these people
here will be off the hook. Then you can fly the weapons
out.

“We try to fly the weapons out, General, this is
going to be a big operation and damned risky.”

“I know that. But these people inside the Beltway
don’t have the balls to take any flak from the
Sierra Club about nuclear pollution. They’d rather
take U.s. casualties than Iraqi
casualties. It’s not that they’re callous, it’s just
the fact that they got in with a plurality of the votes.
We’re dealing with a president that sixty percent of the
American people didn’t want. He knows it, his
staff knows it-and they won’t risk alienating the
support they do have. That’s political reality. So
plan for an airlift.”

“Don’t we have a carrier battle group in the
Gulf of Oman? If she ran west through the
Strait of Hormuz into the Persian
Gulf that would help.”

“We’ll send her in. Now let me talk
to Loy again.”

Jake passed the handset to General Loy and
walked out of the room.

“They’re in Samarra,” The air intelligence
staff officer said it positively.

Jake Grafton needed to be sold. “A
fifty-fifty chance, sixty-forty, what?”

“No, sir. They’re there. We saw the planes
come in from Russia and nothing big enough to transport a
missile has left. We’ve got round-the-clock
real-time satellite surveillance. They’re there.”

“The n-dssiles?”

“The missiles are there, yessir.”

“And the warheads?”

“I don’t know,” the staff officer said, and shook
his head. “They’re so small . . .”

“Have they been moving Scuds around?”

“No. We would have seen that. They’ve tried
to keep them under cover since the war. We know where some
of them are, but certainly not all.”

“Let me see if I have this right: the Russian
missiles are in Samarra, but we only know where
some of the Scuds are. If the Iraqis are
mating nuclear warheads to the Scuds, they must have
taken the warheads to the missiles, because they haven’t
brought the missiles to Samarra.”

“Yessir.”

“Then we’re fucked. “Yes, sir. That’s a very
apt description. I couldn’t say it any better
myself.”

“Find the Scuds.”

“Sir, we’ve been trying to do that for eighteen
months.”

“Have the Iraqis taken warheads to the sites of the
Scuds we know about?”

“I don’t know, sir. We’ve been trying-was

“You’re not trying hard enough,” Jake Grafton
said coldly. “Track every vehicle leaving the
Samarra base and see where it goes. If the
vehicle visits the site of a known Scud, you’ve
just found one.” Jake lowered his voice.

“They tell me you people are the very best. Your
equipment is the best.

Find those warheads. I don’t care what you have
to do, but find them.

Now!”

A modern joint military operation is
extraordinarily complex and requires
extensive planning. The myriad of details cannot
be worked out in hours, not even by competent, experienced
professionals. Days, even weeks, go into the
planning of a successful joint operation.

Jake Grafton was demanding this one be put together
and be ready to launch in eighteen hours, by 20:00
local time tomorrow. He would have gone sooner, even in
daylight, if the planning could have been completed, but
even he had to admit there was no way. As it was there
would be no time for a run-through with the commanders involved, no
time to sort things out before the starting gun fired, so there
were going to be snafus-people getting in one another’s
way, people who didn’t go at all, busted equipment,
too many people at one place, too few at others,
things that had to happen but didn’t … He expected
all that. But it could get worse-there could be good guys
shooting at good guys. He and the troops would have
to live with it.

Or die with it. Being Jake Grafton, he
didn’t think much about the dying part, except to ensure
that the medical support would be there, all that could be
fitted in.

Fortunately General Loy named a competent
professional to plan and command the operation, Major
General Daniel Serkin, a
whipcord-tough soldier with only one pace-fast.

Jake Grafton stood and watched, walked the
floor and listened to the planners, perused op
orders, conferred repeatedly with General Serkin.

And worried that while the allies fretted over
call signs and radio frequencies Saddam would
start spraying nuclear warheads at his enemies.

At dawn he called General Land and gave him
a preliminary overview. The operation would start with a
navy SEAL team delayed parachute drop from
thirty thousand feet. Chutes would open under two
thousand feet. The team would secure the airport
perimeter, wipe out antiaircraft resistance and
machine gun emplacements. A battalion from the
101/ Airborne Division (air Assault)
would then arrive in helicopters escorted
by electronic warfare aircraft-Wild
Weasels-and fighters, with helicopter gunships
providing close air support. The idea was
to quickly overpower any resistance, make the
airfield safe for transports.

These would come in with their own aerial escort, which
would orbit overhead and prevent Iraqi forces from
counterattacking. With all the Russian weapons
aboard, the transports would leave and the
American and allied troops would pull out under air
cover. If everything went according to plan, the raid would
be over before the Iraqis could bring overwhelming
military power to bear.

Fortunately Saddam Hussein seemed to be
expecting an air strike. The radars in the
Baghdad and Samarra area were almost constantly on the
air and mobile antiaircraft guns were moving
into the area. But not troops.

Toad Tarkington suggested a name for this operation,
Operation Appointment. Jake told him the name
lacked pizzazz, but he too had read John
O’Hara so he recommended the name to General Land,
who accepted it without comment.

“So it all depends on how deep the Iraqi
forces are at the airfield?”

Land said finally, when Jake was finished.

“Yessir. Intelligence says we’ll be facing
a battalion of Republican Guard.”

“Armor?”

“Yessir. We have a choice-try to wipe Out the
tanks with Apaches prior to the SEAL drop, or
drop the SEALS and try to achieve surprise, then
bring in the Apaches.”

“Has General Serkin made a
decision?”

“Not yet.”

“Found the Scuds?”

“Not yet, Sir.”

“What if you don’t find them?”

“We’ll go anyway.”

“And the antiaircraft defenses?” comWe’ll
use missiles, chaff, and jamming, then A-6’s
and A-10’s.”

“Call me back later.”

Jake went to find a place to sleep. One
office had a couch. He was pulling off his shoes when
Toad Tarkington tracked him down. “Here’s a
message from Ambassador Lancaster in Moscow,
for your eyes only.”

Jake tore open the envelope. Herb Tenney
was dead. In his sleep. re aspirin, but Half the
pills Jake put in Herb’s mouth we some of them
were part of the binary cocktail. Perhaps I ferb already
had the other half in his system. Damn! Or someone
just poisoned him.

Jake replaced the message in the envelope and
passed it back to Toad.

“Herb Tenney died in his sleep.”

Toad snorted. “His tough luck.”

Jake balled his fist and started to pound his thigh,
then opened his hand and ran it through his hair. “I am
really sick of this mess.”

“I know,” Toad said. “I know.”

“Turn the lights out and close the door. Let
me sleep for three hours.”

“Yessir.”

“And question General Yakolev. Find out if they
shot down that Russian helicopter pilot,
Vasily Lutkin.”

“CAG, you aren’t responsible for that. Yakolev
is. You can’t-was

“Just do it, Toad.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

He lay in the darkness trying to relax. Too many
details ran through his mind, too many questions were still
unanswered.

Saddam Hussein was down to his last trick, but
it was a dilly this time.

He had tried to take the Iranian oil
fields and lost, tried to take Kuwait and found out
that a secondor third-rate military power could not
win on a modern conventional battlefield. So now
he was playing the nuclear card. And it would be a
winner unless allied forces arrived in time.

In time.

What was happening in Washington?

When Toad woke Jake up, he had a
message. “The president said G.

You’re to call General Land.”

For some reason he didn’t quite understand, Jake
felt refreshed and relaxed after his nap. He
followed Toad to the corn center and sat drinking
coffee while the technicians placed the call
to Washington.

Hayden Land’s voice had a note of
optimism this morning, actually midnight or after in
Washington. “The White House crowd finally faced
up to the fact they have no choice.”

No choice! The words echoed in Jake’s mind.
It’s almost as if the grand smashup is preordained,
he thought.

“Where are the Scud missiles?”

“They aren’t moving on the roads, sir,” the air
intelligence officer told Jake Grafton. “And
we can’t find any vehicles leaving the Samarra
base that go to any of the Scud sites we know about.
None. We’ve used computers to analyze
satellite imagery and side-looking radar
to track their vehicles. We’ve come up
dry.”

“Maybe most of the warheads are still at the
Samarra base.”

“Reluctantly, I come to that conclusion too,
Admiral.”

It is never safe to assume that your opponent is
doing what you want him to do. Jake Grafton was
well aware of that pitfall, and yet . –
“Perhaps,” he murmured, “Saddam is having his
trouble adapting the warheads to the missiles.”

“It’s possible,” Colonel Rheinhart
agreed. “The Iraqis reduced the payload
capability of their missiles several years ago in
order to carry more fuel.”

“So where is Saddam?” Jake asked the
intelligence staff.

“He rode out the Gulf War in ‘91 in a
camping trailer that moved randomly around Baghdad.
We told the press we knew where all the command and
control facilities were, which was a serious
stretcher. Then we blew up a few of them with smart
bombs and he concluded we were telling the truth.”

con”And now?”

“Well, we’ve refined our satellite
capability since the Gulf War. We have
side-looking radar in the air that tracks moving
vehicles so that we can find Scud sites. Now
we do have all the command and control facilities
spotted and we can follow Saddam for days at a
time.

Unfortunately, right now we seem to have lost
track of him.”

“Could he be at the Samarra base?” Jake
asked.

“Sir, he could be anywhere.”

General Loy, Major General Serkin, and
Jake Grafton reviewed the final plan together.
They set H-Hour for 24:00 this night. Serkin
said he didn’t think they could go sooner, and with yet
another glance at his watch Jake acquiesced.

Then he went to find Toad. “Did you get
anything out of Yakolev?”

“He refused to say a word. When he heard the
question he looked at me like I was crazy.”

Jake Grafton sighed. “I’m jumping tonight with the
SEAL’S,” he said after a bit. “I want you
to bring the nuclear weapons experts in on choppers.
Get chopper transport for Jack Yocke and a
network camera team and as many other print and
television reporters as you can cram in.
Have Captain McElroy and the marines bring our two
Russian friends and Spiro Dalworth. Bring
Colonel Rheinhart, Jocko West and the other
international observers.

You’re in charge of that operation.”

“No, sir. I’m going with you.”

Jake Grafton did a double take. “Toad,
I want you to get the press and the international people there.
This is the key to the whole deal.”

“Rita can handle it, CAG. I’m going with you.”

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,
Commander. You-

“CAG, you can court-martial me if you like. But
I’m going with you to watch your back. You are the key
to this operation and if you get zapped, the rest of us are
in big fucking trouble. I’d never forgive myself if
that happened and Rita wouldn’t forgive me either. Now
that’s that.”