by Robert Gandt
What if they also sent in an assault force?
He would be forced to yield territory, of course. But northern Yemen was perfect guerilla country, and the Americans had no stomach for close-in fighting in these hills. Nor would the citizens of the United States tolerate plane loads of their young men returning home in body bags. A ground war in Yemen was not on their list of options.
But he couldn’t allow a strike. Not yet. Not until the long standing business in the Gulf of Aden had been settled.
Where was Manilov?
His last communication from the submarine had been early yesterday. The Russian had signaled that he would be in a position to attack this morning.
And then nothing.
Who was this Manilov? Al-Fasr had never met him. Hakim, the agent who secured the contract with the Russian, had been convinced that he was reliable. The submarine captain, according to Hakim, possessed a hatred of the Americans that nearly equaled Al-Fasr’s.
Now Al-Fasr was not sure. In his experience, Russians were unreliable. They were temperamental romantics whose passions came and went like the tides. Today they hated Americans, tomorrow someone else. Vodka and corruption were the only constants in Russia.
Nothing had happened in the Gulf, according to his source aboard the Reagan. The radar operator on the guided missile cruiser Arkansas had reported a disappearing contact—a possible submarine—but the subsequent search had turned up nothing. For good reason, Al-Fasr had not solicited more information from his source about the contact. The source aboard the Reagan was uninformed about the Russian submarine and its mission.
Al-Fasr was concerned. Had the Russian captain been intimidated by the firepower arrayed against him and decided to run? Or were the American anti-submarine forces so effective as to thwart any attempted attack?
As he walked, he kicked at loose stones, thinking about the absent Russian submarine. Everything depended now on Manilov. Everything that Al-Fasr had planned for so long was waiting to come together, like electrons of an imploding atom.
He walked past the row of camouflaged bunkers that contained racks of missiles. Beneath a retractable screen, a huge dish antenna pointed at the sky and the constellation of satellites that served Al-Fasr’s bank of communication devices. He could make an instant connection with any commercial telephone in the world, receive any televised newscast, conduct encrypted and scrambled conversations with anyone he chose.
Except Manilov. What the hell was happening?
<>
She knew she was running away from the hotel, but she had no choice. She came again to the Al-Salah restaurant. For a second she considered dashing inside, asking for help. Then she saw the Yemenis come out—the same grim-faced men who had stared at her. They were watching, pointing, gesturing with their arms. One of them yelled.
Was he yelling at her, or giving directions to someone else?
The footsteps behind her were louder, closer.
A hundred yards away she saw a dimly-lighted T interesection. She sprinted toward the corner, then peered left and right. In either direction, the street narrowed and angled off into darkness.
Which way?
To the right. She rounded the corner and bolted down the narrowing lane.
She felt her heart pounding in her chest, her breath coming in short, heavy rasps. She wasn’t a runner, never had been, hated it, in fact.
In a darkened doorway she heard something—a hissing noise. Cat? Rat? The spike of fear sent another surge of adrenaline through her. Her foot banged into an object, something metallic, a trash can, she guessed, sending it clattering into the darkness.
Behind her, the footsteps were louder, drawing nearer. She heard men’s voices, heavy breathing. How many? Who were they? What did they want?
Stop thinking. Run as if your life depends on it. It does.
The narrow street meandered left, then right, twisting like a snake between the ancient buildings. She was lost, running without direction, plunging into the darkest heart of Yemen.
Another intersection of narrow lanes. To the left she saw a glimmer of light. She turned the corner, and saw a faint illumination somewhere ahead, around the bend in the lane.
She couldn’t keep running. Her need for oxygen was critical, and her legs had become numb and wooden. It occurred to her that she should have asked Maloney for some sort of weapon. A gun, a knife even, to hell with legalities. She could have concealed it in the leather pouch she wore under her blouse where she kept ID cards and money and her passport.
Too late. The most lethal instrument in her kit was a tube of lipstick.
The dim light ahead was moving, casting a ray of light against the front of an ancient plaster wall. As she rounded the corner she saw that the yellow glow came from the headlights of a clattering automobile. It was stopped at the junction a hundred meters ahead. For what?
She slowed, suddenly more afraid of the car than the running footsteps behind her. The car wasn’t moving. It seemed to be waiting.
Drawing nearer she peered at the rickety vehicle. It was a rusty Peugeot, a diesel, judging by the clacking engine noise and the stench of exhaust. On its roof was an object, a dimly lit marker with Arabic lettering.
A taxi.
She saw the driver, a hawk-nosed man wearing a checkered kaffiyeh. As she ran to him, he regarded her with dark, interested eyes.
She reached inside her blouse, zipped open the leather pouch, and pulled out a folded piece of paper. The one Maloney had given her at the restaurant.
She thrust it at the driver. “American embassy,” she said between gasps. “Please, please, take me there.”
She heard the running footsteps in the lane behind her. The driver heard them too. He gazed at Claire, then he held the piece of paper up to the light.
The footsteps were loud, almost there. Wheezing voices, someone barking orders in Arabic.
“Please,” she said. “They want to kill me.”
The driver peered at the running figures coming toward them. He had dark, penetrating eyes, like the men in the restaurant.
Maloney’s words came back to her. They hate you. They hate us all.
The driver looked at her. Abruptly he reached behind him and opened the passenger door.
There were four of them, running toward the taxi at full tilt. The first was reaching for the door handle just as the driver shoved the Peugeot into gear and floored it. In a shower of plaster dust and dirt and diesel fumes, they sped down the street.
Chapter Fifteen
Deliverance
Al Hazir, Yemen
0545, Wednesday, 19 June
The eastern ridgeline glowed orange in the approaching dawn. At exactly 0600, Gritti’s voice crackled over the PRC-112 transceiver.
“Runner One-one, do you read Boomer?”
“Go, Boomer.”
“Show time, pal. Our train’s coming in.”
“Copy that. We’ve got our tickets ready.”
As he put down the radio, Maxwell heard the faraway beat of inbound helos. He saw that B.J. was awake now. She lay under the thermal blanket, regarding him with large, somber eyes. Her face was still blackened, and her short, dark hair lay in a mat on her head.
Actually, he observed, she was a good-looking girl, even with all the glop on her face. Funny that he had never noticed before.
She caught him studying her. “I look like a witch, don’t I?”
“More like a girl who’s been chased by guerillas in Yemen.”
She gave him a wan smile. “Are they going to pick us up?”
“They’re on the way.”
“Will the Sherji start shooting again?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She slid the blanket aside and sat up. Her left arm was bound in the sling he had made for her. She winced when she tried to use the arm. “Owww, that really hurts.”
“Are you able to move? We have to find a clear spot for the pick up.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing is
going to stop me from getting into that chopper.”
They gathered their equipment into the two satchels. With Maxwell in the lead, they started down the hillside. He didn’t want to risk traveling far, only to an open area with enough clearance for the helo crew to pick them up.
It would have to be a quick snatch. The Sherji would know about the helos as soon as they did. He carried the .45 with a refilled magazine in his right hand, just in case.
On a terraced hillside he found a clearing that looked suitable. Not too steep, not so open that it would be a shooting gallery. He motioned for B.J. to take cover in the bushes above the clearing. “When they get close, we’ll throw the smoke flare into the clearing. Don’t wait for them to land. Just run out and let the crew haul you aboard.”
She nodded. “Do you think it’s gonna work?”
“We’ll be okay.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Well, just in case, I wanted you to know. . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Wanted me to know what?”
She swallowed, then finished. “I mean, you know, I wanted to say. . . thanks.”
“You saved me first, remember?”
“Uh, huh.” She kept her eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder, avoiding his look. “That’s not really what I meant. Look, I have to say this, just get it out and then drop it.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She blurted the rest. “I love you. That’s all. It’s crazy, I know, but I just had to say it and I promise I’ll never bring it up again, okay?”
She turned away and began furiously retying her bootlace.
Maxwell stared. He tried to think of something to say but nothing came out. He was still standing there, speechless, when the Sherji guns opened up.
The sounds of battle again spilled out of the hills.
The Whiskey Cobras came in low and fast, rockets blazing from their inboard pylons, streams of cannon fire spewing from the chin-mounted twenty millimeters. Behind them, approaching the Marine perimeter, the big vulnerable CH-53E Super Stallions were already taking hits. The first cargo helicopter pulled up and made a hard turn away. Then the next. And the next. None were landing.
The Sherji gunners were getting the range on the helicopters.
“Abort, abort!” Maxwell heard Gritti calling on the SAR frequency. “Pull the Stallions back. It’s another fucking ambush.”
He heard the frustration in Gritti’s voice. The Cobras were dueling with the Sherji gunners, concealed in a line of scrub trees south of the marines’ perimeter. In the distance Maxwell heard the bullets pinging into the retreating Super Stallions.
Maxwell had already tossed his flare. Now a gush of orange smoke was wafting into the sky from the clearing where Maxwell and B.J. were huddled.
“Do you think the helicopters see us?” B.J. asked.
“I don’t know, but the Sherji definitely can.” He stashed the PRC-112 radio and yanked B.J. to her feet. “This is turning into another shooting gallery. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“Wait,” she said. “They still might be able to—”
A nearby burst of gunfire cut her off. It was close, no more than a hundred yards. Without protest, she grabbed the satchel with her good arm and followed Maxwell down the hill.
Before they’d gone twenty yards, they heard the sudden racket of rotor blades. Maxwell turned to see a Cobra gunship pop over the ridgeline behind them. Directly behind the Cobra appeared a UH-1N Super Huey utility helicopter. While the Cobra flashed overhead, the Huey swept in over the clearing where Maxwell had thrown the smoke flare, kicking up a tornado of dirt and orange smoke.
A crewman in the three-man sling was descending from the hovering Huey. Maxwell and B.J. retraced their steps, running to where the crewman was just stepping to the ground.
He wore a cranial protector and goggles and a helmet-mounted radio. Blinking, coughing in the dirt and smoke, B.J. and Maxwell each slipped a loop of the sling around them as they had been trained. The crewman gave the sling a quick check, then flashed a thumbs up to the man peering at them from the open hatch. With a lurch the sling yanked them off the ground, reeling them upward. While they were still clambering inside the cabin, the Huey’s nose tilted forward and accelerated.
They sat facing each other in the drafty cabin of the helicopter as they sped back southward. Neither spoke. B.J., still black-faced and wearing her sling, huddled in the corner, avoiding Maxwell’s eyes.
Out the open hatch he saw the column of Super Stallions following them. “How many did they pick up?” he asked the crewman, already knowing the answer.
He shook his head. “Just you, and that was blind ass luck. The Cobra gunner spsotted your smoke. Nobody could get inside the perimeter.”
B.J. gazed out the hatch at the empty cargo helicopters. “Al-Fasr knew they were coming, didn’t he?”
Maxwell nodded. “Yeah, he knew.”
<>
“Surrender?” said Gritti. “He’s gotta be kidding.”
“No, sir,” said Captain Baldwin, the compactly built young officer Gritti had sent over the wire. “The guy was dead serious. Says we have one hour. Then they come into the perimeter with tanks and artillery and a force of infantry. If jets or helicopters show up before that, they’re gonna get shot down with missiles.”
“And if we surrender?”
“He says we’ll be fed and treated as guests, not prisoners.”
Gritti snorted. “Hostages, he means.”
Baldwin just nodded.
Gritti couldn’t remember when he had felt so lousy. He had been in this goddamned hell hole for—how long now? Eighteen hours? No, longer.
At least the heavy firing had ceased. For the past three hours there had been just this eerie silence. No mortars, no sniper fire.
Then, this afternoon, a white flag. Three hundred yards away, from the treeline where the Sherji were concealed, an emissary in fatigues and a brown kaffiyeh walked out into the open. He carried a megaphone. He announced that he wanted to talk to the Marine commander.
Gritti had dispatched Baldwin to talk to the emissary. After ten minutes of discussion, the young captain returned.
Now, through his fatigue, Gritti was trying to make sense of the situation. “Tell me what you think, Captain.”
Baldwin glanced around, then said in a lowered voice, “I think it sucks. So do the rest of our marines. They want to know why we’re stuck here without support. Where the hell are our reinforcements?”
Gritti nodded southward. “Out there. On the Saipan and the Reagan. Waiting for someone to give the order.”
“Almost seems like they want us to be captured, doesn’t it, sir?”
“The thought crossed my mind.”
“Are we going to surrender, Colonel?”
Gritti didn’t answer. For the third time that day, he called War Lord on the UHF/SAT channel. He had to speak quickly. The batteries were almost shot. Another shining example of America’s high tech hardware turning to inert shit when it was most needed. Here they were, surrounded by third world guerillas—whose equipment was more sophisticated than their own.
Gritti gave Vitale a quick version of the surrender demand. Let them chew on it, he decided. Let the brass earn their pay.
“We copy that,” said Vitale. “Stand by.”
Gritti knew what that meant. Fletcher and his staff were wringing their hands over the problem. Maybe even running it past JTF or someone in the Pentagon. It also meant, he had no doubt, that the civilian pissant, Babcock, was making the call.
“Boomer,” came Vitale’s voice again. “We have reason to think that this channel—all the channels on your field radio—might be compromised.”
“Good thinking. We figured that out yesterday.” He knew the sarcasm was spilling out, but he didn’t care. Navy dipshits.
“Your orders are unchanged, Boomer. Maintain your perimeter while the situation gets resolved diplomatically.”
“Lis
ten!” Gritti exploded. “Before you people get the situation resolved diplomatically, the game will fucking well be over. Do you understand that? When is someone going to get their thumb out of their ass and thump these guys?”
He laid down the microphone and took a deep breath. Okay, he thought, you’ve gone over the edge. That takes care of your career. But what the hell? If you live through this, you get to go fishing.
A long pause ensued. He thought maybe his batteries had finally expired.
The earphone crackled again. “Boomer, regarding the present situation, War Lord authorizes you to use your own discretion.”
Gritti stared at the radio. He felt a wave of depression descend over him. Use your own discretion. They were telling him he could keep fighting or surrender. He was on his own.
<>
Al-Fasr paced the hard dirt outside his command bunker. When he reached the end of the path, he turned and retraced his steps. As he paced, he kept glancing at the sky, listening for the sounds of incoming aircraft.
Nothing. An hour had passed since he sent the ultimatum to the Marine commander.
No response.
Al-Fasr had monitored the radio exchange between the Marine colonel and his commanders. He had heard them, with typical American military ineptitude, tell the colonel to “use his own discretion.” What did that mean? That he could surrender?
As if he had a choice.
Thinking about the incompetent commanders on the Reagan angered Al-Fasr. Why didn’t they order the marine to surrender? Where was Babcock? Why wasn’t he intervening? Babcock understood that the United States, more now than in recent times, had no stomach for casualties of war. They would vastly prefer seeing their soldiers held captive over being slaughtered like cattle.
Al-Fasr didn’t think they would deliver more air support. He had demonstrated that he could shoot down helicopters as if they were guinea fowl. The fighters were more deadly, but they had shown no further interest in using them after losing three of the outrageously expensive craft in action.