Shadows of steel pm-5 Read online

  When the first Hawk launched at twenty-five miles, it was like a nightmare come alive. The cockpit crew could actually see the missile lift off, its bright rocket-motor plume clearly visible on the horizon. They could see the bright yellow arc as it described a powered, semi-ballistic flight path through the sky. The pilot punched out chaff, racked the Bronco into a tight right turn using max back pressure on the control stick to get the tightest turn—but the Hawk followed. A second Hawk went up, followed by a third. The Iranian missile crews knew that the attacker might evade the first missile, but doing so greatly reduced the attacker’s speed, which made it likely that a second or third missile could claim a kill. The pilot set the radar altimeter warning bug to thirty feet; Briggs, Behrouzi, and the three UAE commandos in the cargo bay heard almost constant warning tones as the pilot edged lower and lower, trying to evade the missiles.

  When the pilot banked hard, the radar altimeter completely broke lock, the warning horn sounded constantly, and the commandos all feared that it would be the last sound they’d hear before crashing into the sea.

  “All chaff expended,” the gunner reported. They would be going in completely unprotected now.

  Every hard bank threw the cargo bay occupants harder and harder against their harnesses, but each jarring move made Behrouzi smile. “They are working well,” she said to Briggs, motioning toward the cockpit. The noise level was very high in the Bronco’s cargo bay because they had removed the small rear door before takeoff—it would make it easier to do what they needed to do once they got over the Iranian naval base. “I think they do better than I.”

  Hal Briggs was smiling, too, but his smile was just a facade—inside, his guts were twisting with worry, doubt, and downright fear. Had he made the right decision? He hadn’t expected to involve the lives of six other soldiers on this mission—and he certainly didn’t expect to involve Riza Behrouzi.

  In his fantasy, he envisioned doing a HALO (High-Altitude, Low-Opening) parachute jump, solo of course, his trusty Uzi his only companion; he’d land on the rooftop of wherever the prisoners were being kept, blast his way inside, rescue the hostages, steal a cargo plane, dodge enemy fighters on the way out, bring them all back alive, be the hero, and fall blissfully into Riza’s waiting arms.

  Well, this was reality: he was leading six strangers right into the well-prepared and well-armed clutches of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s army. They were still five minutes from reaching landfall, and already they were heavily under attack. Worse, he still didn’t know where the hostages were—or even if they were here in the first place!—and he had no idea how he was going to get them out. Stupid. Dumb. Asinine. If he survived this, Wohl was rightly going to kick his ass into the next century—or shoot him, if his rash actions caused the deaths of any of his men.

  “How are we doing, Lieutenant?” Behrouzi called up front to the weapons officer. “Was that three Hawk missiles you evaded?”

  “Yes, Major,” the weapons officer replied.

  “Very good,” Behrouzi said in Arabic, her smile just as strong and as mind-blowing as always—it was more than enough to distract even Hal Briggs. “Expect a second volley in a few seconds and be sure to destroy it with the Sidearms.

  If it does not come up, prepare for a Rapier or ZSU-23 radar. I don’t wish to swim to our target tonight.”

  “I’ll do my best, Major—ah, damn you … my God … there!

  Shoot!” the weapons officer shouted. The commandos in the cargo bay could hear the threat warning receiver beep, and the Bronco entered another impossibly tight break to evade another missile launch. But moments later they heard a loud fwooosh! from the right wing as the first Sidearm antiradar missile left its rail, and a few moments later, the threat tone abruptly ended.

  “Very good, Captain,” Behrouzi called up to the pilot, smiling even more broadly, wishing that she could be watching the pilot’s actions as he fought to outmaneuver these Iranian missiles. “Keep up the good work. Let me know when you have the prison complex in sight.” The weapons officer’s response was choked off by another hard break, this time to the left, followed by another Sidearm launch. “What was that, Lieutenant? Another Hawk?”

  The weapons officer was completely flabbergasted—here he was, fighting for his life, just milliseconds from getting a missile in the face or crashing into the sea, and a senior government intelligence officer, an assistant to the commanding general and the son of the Emir of Dubai, was making conversation! “That …

  Allah preserve us, climb! … That was a Rapier J-band Blindfire radar, Major.”

  “Ah, very good, the Iranians made a mistake,” Behrouzi said gleefully. “They activated their short-range air defense systems too soon. Did you get it, Lieutenant?”

  “I … I don’t think so, Major.”

  “That was the last Sidearm missile—we’re on our own now,” Behrouzi said in Arabic. “That Rapier is your first priority, Lieutenant—be sure you kill that unit right away. Range to shore?”

  “Twenty kilometers.”

  Behrouzi was silent—and Briggs knew why: they were still several minutes away from being able to attack any of the air defense sites with their Hellfire missiles. The longer range Hawk missile batteries could still track and shoot at them, no matter how low they flew.

  Briggs clicked on the radio: “Genesis, this is Redman. The lights are bright in Broadway now. How copy?” No response. “Genesis, this is Redman, anytime now, buddy.” Still no reply. He removed the headset and tossed it aside. “Looks like our angel has flown back to heaven.”

  “It was perhaps too much to hope for,” Behrouzi said. On interphone, she asked, “Range to shore, Lieutenant?”

  “Eighteen kil-” He was interrupted by the threat warning receiver’s blaring alarm again—it was another Hawk missile site.

  Behrouzi looked into Briggs’s eyes, and he could sense her fear—the Hawk was locked on, and there was nowhere to run now.

  “Hawk acquisition … Hawk target illuminator …” They then heard the fast, high-pitched deedledeedledeedle! as the threat warning system detected the Hawk missile launch. The speed at which the Hawk system had gone from acquisition to illuminator to missile launch told them that the Hawk had a solid lock-on. The pilot started his evasive maneuvers, but everyone could sense that the maneuvers were sharper, more desperate … there was a second launch warning tone, then a third”

  “Missiles in the air! Missiles tracking!” the gunnery officer shouted. “More missiles … I see more missiles in the air!”

  One after another, it seemed as if the sky was filling with missiles, and now a few antiaircraft artillery sites opened up far in the distance, like a shower of fireworks. “There are missiles everywhere!” the gunner shouted hysterically. “They are everywhere! They-“

  The interphone went dead, and the Bronco’s wild evasive maneuvers were cut short. A terrific explosion shook the Bronco as if a giant hand had slapped it, and there was a tremendous screech, like a man crying in terror … but they were still flying.

  Behrouzi tore her headphones off and shouted, “There is a loud squeal in the radios. I cannot hear anything!”

  For the first time in what seemed like years, Briggs smiled.

  “That’s my angel,” he said. “Good going, Mack.”

  It took several minutes for the squealing to subside in the radios and interphone. When she was able to be heard over the persistent side tones, Behrouzi asked the gunner, “What has happened, Lieutenant?”

  “Every missile site in Iran opened fire on us all at once,” Junayd replied excitedly, “but all the missiles seemed to fly in every direction but ours. Then some artillery sites opened fire—but they were sweeping the skies erratically. I am still picking up missile tracking, illuminators, and up-link signals, but I see no missiles or gun sites attacking. It was as if they fired all their weapons at once at some large mass of targets overhead …

  “That is good, Lieutenant,” Behrouzi said. “Our American comman
der brought an angel with us on the flight—I hope it stays.

  Range to shore?”

  “Nine kilometers, Major.”

  “Good. Well within Hellfire missile range. Do you have that Rapier site yet?”

  “Major, please, I’m doing the best … wait … target identified!” the weapons officer cried out suddenly. “I see it!”

  “Be sure it’s not a decoy, Lieutenant.”

  “I see the Sidearm impact point—the Sidearm hit a wall right in front of the unit and missed by just a few meters. Locked on!”

  “Well, kill it, then, pilot, don’t just narrate,” Behrouzi screamed up to the pilot—the pilot of a Bronco controlled the attack missiles, while the weapons officer controlled the Gatling gun. Just then, the commandos heard a loud, sustained fwoooshhh!

  as the first Hellfire missile left its launch tube, followed by a second launch a few seconds later. In this engagement, since the range of a Hellfire and a Rapier were almost the same, the first one to fire would probably be the winner—and Behrouzi’s crew won.

  “Target destroyed!” Junayd shouted. “Target destroyed!”

  “Very good,” Behrouzi said. “Be on the lookout for antiaircraft artillery sites, but it’s rare to find antiaircraft artillery units active on a naval installation.

  “Now I want a careful surveillance of the facility, looking for any evidence of where those captives might be held,” Behrouzi went on. “You have the diagram of the security headquarters, correct, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, Major,” the weapons officer replied. “Our navigation coordinates are programmed for the detention facility, which is right next to the base hospital. We’ll look there first.”

  “The longer you take, the less fuel you’ll have for your return flight, Lieutenant,” Behrouzi reminded the cockpit crew in an almost humorous tone.

  “I understand … I have the hospital … I see the detention facility. It appears to be dark inside, Major—no sign of occupation. I see only a few lights on in the ground-floor security headquarters. The building appears deserted, no perimeter lights on in the detention facility, no vehicles outside. The hospital looks as if it is fully staffed.”

  Behrouzi turned to Briggs and said in English, “You must decide, Leopard,” she said. “The crew says the detention facility appears deserted—no lights, no sign of activity. The hospital appears to be fully staffed. Shall we try?”

  “The detention facility,” Briggs said immediately. “We may have only one chance at this.”

  “I was in the security business for ten years,” Briggs said resolutely. “Prisoners always go to the secure facility. If they’re hurt and you’re going to treat them, you bring the doctors into the facility, not take prisoners out to an unsecure area.

  And I never allowed anyone to park outside my secure areas—too easy to hot-wire a car and blow through a gate, or set booby traps, or take cover during a raid. We go in the detention area, inside the perimeter fence. Directly on the rooftop if possible.”

  “Very well, Leopard,” Behrouzi said, her smile showing that she was pleased with his resolve. She pulled out her chart of the Chah Bahar Naval Base and, in Arabic and English, briefed their intended target, then ordered her three commandos to get ready.

  The Bronco pilot made a high-speed approach from the seaward side of the base at very low altitude.

  The weapons officer designated targets for the Hellfire missiles, identifying occupied buildings that looked as though they were headquarters buildings or communications centers, and at the same time took shots with the Gatling gun at every power transformer, large vehicle, fuel-storage tank, or anything else that he thought might disrupt things down on the base and cover their activities.

  The last run was at the security headquarters, which was the lower floor of the security and detention building. They shot Hellfires at the spots where they knew important rooms were located—the communications stations, the armories, the power transformers—and shot out yard lights and any lighted doorways with the 20-millimeter Gatling gun.

  “I see a long strip of cloth tied to the outside of a window on the second floor,” Junayd yelled back to the cargo bay.

  “Does it form a letter?” Briggs shouted back. “A letter in the Roman alphabet?”

  “Yes,” Junayd replied, using maximum power on his FLIR targeting scope. “It forms the letter M.”

  “That’s one of our guys,” Briggs said, smiling broadly for the first time. “Madcap Magician. They’re down there. Let’s get ready!”

  The weapons officer Junayd saved two Hellfires to blow big holes in the side of the security headquarters. About 600 yards from the building itself, the pilot started a hard climb, so he was directly over the detention facility at the crest of the climb at 600 feet. At that point, the five commandos in the Bronco’s cargo section made their static-line parachute jumps.

  Briggs was going out first. He braced himself against the open door at the rear of the cargo bay, hands and toes outside. As the Bronco started its steep climb, Briggs found himself looking directly down into the security headquarters complex, a square three-story building surrounded by twelve-foot-high barbed-wire fences. Then, just before the Bronco reached the top of its climb, Briggs simply let himself fall through the opening.

  He heard the roar of the twin turboprops at maximum continuous power only for a brief instant, and then he heard the wall of air-raid and emergency sirens from the base. The static line yanked his ‘chute out of its pack immediately. He heard the loud crack … whuumpp! of four other ‘chutes opening above him—very close above him. He looked up and saw Riza dumping air out of her ‘chute right away, trying to catch up with him. The three UAE commandos were doing the same, all attempting to land at the same time as their leaders.

  By the time their ‘chutes opened, they were less than a hundred feet above ground—they barely had time to get their bearings before they had to steer their parachutes over the detention facility rooftop. Two of the Arab commandos missed the building completely, and Briggs’s and Behrouzi’s ‘chutes actually ran into each other as they maneuvered for their target. Briggs obviously had had a lot less recent practice in parachute infiltrations; he was drifting over to the edge of the rooftop so fast that he had to dump all the air completely out of his ‘chute from fifteen feet to make it to the roof. Behrouzi and her third Arab commando hit directly in the center.

  “Are you all right, Leopard?” Behrouzi asked as she helped Briggs to his feet. He had taken a bad fall, landing heavily on his left leg, but he was on his feet and moving quickly.

  “We lost two,” Briggs said to Behrouzi in reply, as he quickly clipped Simrad GNI night-vision goggles to their helmets.

  Something was torn or sprained in his left knee, but he tried to ignore the pain.

  “No, I directed them to land on the ground and secure the building,” Behrouzi said. Her GNI night-vision goggles and those of the commando with her were already on. “Keep alert—please do not kill them.”

  “I’m hopin’ they don’t kill me,” Briggs said. “Let’s move!” It was too easy to breach the roof access door and make their way inside. The toughest resistance was on the second floor of the three-story building—all the Iranian guards on the first floor had retreated up to the second as the UAE commandos started their surprise assault; the majority of the Pasdaran guards were already stationed on the second floor.

  Briggs didn’t care—if it moved, it died. He was not going to try to be neat or merciful.

  The hallway was lit by emergency lights—those were shot out immediately. Briggs and Behrouzi then threw infrared Cyalume light sticks into the hallways, which would brightly light up the area only for persons wearing night-vision equipment. When Briggs confirmed that Behrouzi’s first two commandos would stay on ground level and would not stray into the line of fire, the killing began.

  Briggs led the way, Behrouzi following with a Dragon twelve-gauge, twelve-round semi-automatic shotgun filled with breaching rou
nds, and the third commando following as rear security, carrying a suppressed MP-5 submachine gun. Trotting through the four corridors, his Uzi with its sixteen-inch suppressor fitted and loaded with thirty-round magazines of subsonic .45-caliber cartridges, Briggs gunned down anyone in front of him that was alive. He rarely needed more than two rounds to take down a guard—one shot to the chest, one to the head.

  As he finished the second corridor, he heard shots coming from the next corridor to the left. He sprinted around the corner and saw a guard unlocking cell doors and firing a pistol into a cell, then moving on to the next cell. Briggs dropped the guard with a three-round burst from thirty feet. “Magicians!” Briggs shouted.

  “Strike a pose!” He then checked the fourth corridor—all guards subdued. Behrouzi sent her Arab commando to guard the main stairway, and she and Briggs began checking each cell.

  The cells appeared to be small dormitory-type rooms, remodeled to be prisoner and punishment-reprimand facilities. Usually it took only one shotgun blast on the top outwardly swinging hinge to crack and pull the door open. When Briggs, now with a Cyalume light stick around his neck, glanced into the occupied cell, he saw two men lying on the floor, facing away from the door, arms outstretched with only the middle fingers extended, and with one leg bent and crossed over the other leg, pointing at the other man in the cell next to them. That was Paul White’s unspoken code-sign for a friendly.

  “On your feet, guys,” Briggs said. “I’m here to get you out.”

  The first cell he breached had Knowlton and McKay inside.

  “Jesus—it’s Major Briggs!” Knowlton said as he helped McKay up.

  “I’ve got him, Hal. He’s hurt bad.”

  “Thanks for the flag outside,” Briggs said, handing Knowlton a pistol from a dead Iranian guard. He was off, checking more cells. “Follow me and stay close.”