Dale Brown - Shadows Of Steel

by Shadows Of Steel [lit]

  Each two-man team handed up their scuba gear and personal weapons to the deck crews, along with forty-pound, suitcase-sized devices.

  These were their AN/PAQ-3 MULE (Modular Universal Laser Equipment) portable telescopic laser illuminators. Tuned to a predetermined frequency and set on a target up to a mile away using electronic low-light telescopes, each invisible laser beam had reflected off its target and then been received by an airborne sensor, thus "illuminating" the proper target and allowing the missiles to home in and destroy the target with pinpoint accuracy. Although each aircrewman had been well familiar with the area and could have found most of the targets without help, the commando teams had known precisely which buildings were important and which were not, and had made each shot fired by the attack aircraft count. Not one precious shot had been wasted--one missile, one kill.

  A thin, non-military-looking gray-haired man in civilian clothes greeted the crewmen as they emerged from the SDV, shaking their hands and giving each of the exhausted, shivering men a cup of soup and a thick towel with which to warm up and dry off. Tired as they were, however, the commandos were still excited, chatting about the mission, congratulating one another. Finally, the last two men emerged from their SDVs, turned in their equipment, and met up with the civilian. One man was tall, white, and powerfully built, with cold, fiery blue eyes; the other was slightly shorter, black, and much leaner, his eyes dark and dancing. The tall man moved silently, with slow, easy grace, while the lean man was animated.

  "Man, what a ride!" he exclaimed loudly. He quickly stepped down the line of commandos in the dock area, giving each of them a slap on the back or shoulder, then returned to do the same to his partner. The men quietly acknowledged his congratulations, but did not return the enthusiasm--in fact, they looked at him with wary, almost hostile expressions. The cold shoulders didn't seem to dampen the young commander's exuberance, though. "It was great, man, awesome!" he exclaimed. "How'd we do, Paul? We kick ass or what?"

  Retired Air Force colonel Paul White, operations commander of the top-secret U.S. Intelligence Support Agency team code-named Madcap Magician, nodded reluctantly. Both he and the tall commando had noticed the looks from the men, but did not mention it. "You kicked ass, all right, Hal," he replied.

  And he was right, they had. In an unprecedented act of regional military cooperation, the Intelligence Support Agency, a cover-action organization of the CIA, had just teamed up with the seven Arab member nations of the Gulf Cooperation Council's military arm, called Peninsula Shield, to attack a disputed Iranian military position in the Persian Gulf. It was the first time in White's memory that the CIA had actively supported an Arab military mission, albeit secretly. Sure, these guys were happy--their mission had gone off without a hitch, a potential enemy had been crippled, and the good-will they had built by joining with their Arab friends might last for many years.

  White's team had been the spearhead of the attack. Most Arab countries had little or no air-combat experience, especially at night. White's job had been to guide the Arab pilots and gunners to their targets accurately enough so that key targets could be destroyed quickly and efficiently, with minimum loss of life on either side. It had been important for Peninsula Shield to score a major victory in its first military mission, especially against one of the very nations that it and the Gulf Cooperation Council had been formed to defend against--the Islamic Republic of Iran.

  Of course, White's other mission had been to see to the safe return of his commandos and the security of his vessel.

  "Ten divers out, ten divers back, and this rust bucket is still afloat," Chris Wohl, the tall man, said in a low, slow Voice. "That's a success."

  "Damn straight!" Hal Briggs crowed. "So let's celebrate! Let's-"

  Just then, another of the commandos walked up to the three Americans. Briggs stopped abruptly, and his face went limp and dazed, as if he had just been shot full of painkillers. The commando was much shorter than Briggs, but was just as wiry and powerful--and she filled out a Mustang suit much better than he.

  Her name was Riza Behrouzi, and she was the commander of the Peninsula Shield security team. A Peninsula Shield commando had gone along with every Madcap Magician commando to assist and to secure the area while the targets were lazed. "All Peninsula Shield operatives present and well," Behrouzi reported. "On behalf of the nations of the Gulf Cooperative Council, I wish to thank you all for your help."

  White was about to accept her thanks, but Briggs interjected: "It was our pleasure, Major Behrouzi..."

  "Riza, please," Behrouzi said to Briggs. Wohl and White got the impression they had instantly been forgotten. "I know it is against your rules to give us your real names, but I have no such restrictions--about names, or about this." She stepped closer to Briggs and gave him a full kiss on the lips. "Thank you."

  "it was nothing... Riza," Briggs said, apparently having difficulty catching his breath.

  "Okay, Leopard," Wohl said irritably. "You want to celebrate, go ahead--after you clean and stow your gear, conduct the post-mission briefing, see to it that your men are fed, and prepare your reports for the National Security Agency and the Director of Central Intelligence. And I believe you have the morning watch, so you better get some sleep. And since you're within eight hours of your watch, You're off the sauce. Other than that, you can celebrate all you want."

  "Gee, Mondo, thanks," Briggs said dejectedly. "You're a real party animal."

  "I would be happy to assist you, Leopard," Behrouzi said. "We shall conduct the briefing and see to our men together."

  "I like the sound of that," Briggs said, instantly perking up. "I tell ya, Riza," he said as they headed out, "I had that Iranian carrier in my sights for a sec out there. It might've taken the entire UAE air force full of Hellfires, but I would loved to see that big bad boy roll over and die." He may have just returned from two hours of scuba diving and six hours of crawling on his belly, but he sounded as hyper is before the day started.

  "Leave it to Briggs," Wohl said. "Ten thousand miles from home, in the middle of the Persian Gulf, and he still manages to find the pretty girls." Catching no response, he looked at White.

  "Everything OK, sir?"

  "Yeah, fine," White replied noncommittally. "Ah... Briggs didn't really laze that Iranian carrier, did he?"

  "No. He's cocky and a smart-ass, but he's a good troop," Wohl said. "He's not stupid enough to ignore orders, no matter how easy the target of opportunity might be. The carrier's safe. It launched a few choppers, but none of its fighters and no missiles.

  Intel was right--the fighters and weapon systems aren't operational on that thing yet. Still can't believe Iran has got an aircraft carrier. We're gonna hear from that thing one of these days, I know it."

  "The guys don't exactly seem enthusiastic about Hal," White observed. "In fact, they're pretty much ignoring him"

  "It's tough for a team that's been together for so long to accept a brand-new commanding officer right away," Wohl said. "This is Briggs's first mission with the team-"

  "Second--you're forgetting the Luger rescue mission in Lithuania..."

  "On which Briggs just happened to be one of the passengers, along with McLanahan and Ormack," Wohl said. "it turned out that Briggs was better prepared, very close to our standards. But he wasn't one of us, and he sure as hell wasn't our leader..."

  "But he is now."

  Wohl stopped and glared at White, then shrugged. "Hey, I was never the real commander of the ops group of Madcap Magician," he said. "You asked me to be reassigned to you because you needed a commanding officer, and I accepted because I was tired of pushing papers at Parris Island. It was only a temporary billet-"

  "That lasted three years," White said. "The men bonded to you right away. You brought them together like no one else could."

  "Because I knew all these guys--I trained them all, even Briggs," Wohl said. "We're all Marines first--except Briggs, of course--then ISA operatives..."

  "So Briggs being ex-
Army and ex-Air Force, he's not going to fit in...?"

  "Depends on him," Wohl replied. "He's got a much different style than me--emotional, energetic, touchy-feely. Briggs rewards guys for good performance and 'counsels' them when it's poor--I expect good performance and loudly kick ass if I get anything but. And he's an officer, too, a young field-grade officer at that--younger than some of the guys on the team--and after all the years I've spent bad-mouthing officers in general and field-grade officers in particular, he's got a tough road ahead.

  "He's a good troop, but a good commanding officer...? Too early to tell. The guys aren't sure how to respond to him yet, that's all. Whether he succeeds is totally up to him. They're the best--whether or not he can lead them is the question only he can answer."

  White nodded absently. Wohl studied him for a moment, then asked, "If everything's so OK, Colonel, why the hangdog look?"

  "Because I've had some reservations about this operation from the start," White said. "We just kicked over a big hornet's nest out there tonight, Chris--and we did it on Iran's Revolution Day, their Fourth of July."

  "Shit, I didn't know that," Wohl said. "I thought it was in November sometime, when they took over the embassy in '79."

  "No, it's today--and I should've known that. I never would've recommended executing this mission on that date," White said.

  "Obviously the GCC knew what day it was."

  "Which you know will make this attack sting even more in Tehran," White said. "And it'll be the U.S. that takes the brunt of Iran's anger. We keep on saying this was a GCC action, but you know damn well that Peninsula Shield isn't going to be leading the fight when the Iranians retaliate for this."

  "How do you know they're going to retaliate?"

  White looked at him grimly. "Because Iran has been preparing for exactly this attack for years, ever since the end of the Iran-Iraq War. We just justified all the billions of dollars they've been spending on modern weapons for the past six years. They aren't going to rest until someone--until everyone--is punished for what happened today."

  TEHRAN, IRAN

  THIRTY MINUTES AFTER THE ATTACK ON ABU MUSA ISLAND General Hesarak all-Kan Buzhazi was supreme commander of the Islamic Republic's Armed Forces and commander of the Revolutionary Guards--and this was the first time in his career that he had ever been admitted to the residence of the leader of the Islamic Revolution, the Ayatollah Ali Hoseini Khamenei. And to tell the truth, he was scared. But as scared as he was to be in the presence of a man who, like Ruhollah Khomeini before him, could by a single word muster the lives and souls of a quarter of a billion Shiite Muslims to his side, it was even more exciting to consider the simultaneous disaster and opportunity that had befallen him that morning. This was one opportunity that could not be missed.

  Buzhazi bowed deeply when shown into his presence, and kept his head bowed until the Faqih spoke. The door was closed behind them. "Your Eminence, thank you for this audience."

  "Some disturbing news has reached me this morning, General," Khamenei said quietly. "Allah has told me of a great threat to the Republic. Tell me what has happened."

  Buzhazi raised his head and stood solemnly, his hands respectfully clasped in front of him as if standing at an altar or at prayers.

  Khamenei was in his late sixties. While his predecessor, the Imam Khomeini, had been tall, gaunt, and ethereal, Khamenei was short, with a round face, a short, bushy dark beard, and large horn-rimmed glasses, which gave him a scholarly, professional, quick-witted appearance. This man before him was the nominal Faqih, the font of jurisprudence of the Islamic Republic and the ultimate lawmaker, whose word could overrule the Parliament and any cleric, any lawyer, any scholar in the Twelver House; he was also the named Marja Ala, the Supreme Leader and spiritual head of the Shiite Muslim sect and the keeper of the will of the twelfth Imam, who was hidden from the world and would soon return to call the faithful to Allah's bosom for all time.

  But for all that, he was a man, not a saint or a prophet. Buzhazi had known Ali Hoseini Khamenei when he had been nothing but an ambitious, back-stabbing know-nothing firebrand from a wealthy pro-Shah cargo shipping family from Bandar-Anzalt on Iran's Caspian coast. Little more than a spoiled rich kid back then, Khamenei had wanted to impress his friends and rebel against his parents by joining up with the wild, shrill-voiced fundamentalist Shiite cleric named Ruhollah Khomeini. He had joined the Khomeini revolution because it was cool and tough to do so, not because he'd had any particular holy vision like Khomeini, but as time went on, he became deeply committed to Khomeini's theocratic ideas. Khamenei held many high positions in government service--soldier, first commander of the Revolutionary Guards, even president of the republic. Now he was the Supreme Leader.

  But he was still just a man. Buzhazi had seen this holy man angry, and sad, and drunk, and just plain stupid.

  Buzhazi knew a lot more about Khamenei's shadowy past. Khamenei was a well-trained soldier as well as an accomplished politician, and throughout his rise through the ranks of power, he'd left a lot of bodies in his wake. Iran was nearly being overrun by Iraq at the beginning of the nine-year War of Retribution; when the president, Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, accused the then-commander of the Pasdaran, Khamenei, of not doing his job and failing the country, suddenly the Ayatollah Khomeini dismissed Bani-Sadr. When a rival politician, Muhammad Ali Rajai, was elected President in 1981, he and his Prime Minister were mysteriously killed in a bomb blast in the Cabinet room-Khamenei somehow survived. Time after time, Ali Hoseini Khamenei was able to fight off challenges to his authority by strange combinations of shrewd political infighting and unexplained and well-timed disasters.

  So now, he told himself to overcome his fears and apprehensions and remember exactly who he was dealing with here, relax. Take command of this situation, he ordered himself. Take charge now!

  "The Republic has been betrayed, Eminence," Buzhazi began. He knew that word betrayed would arouse Khamenei's attention "My orders were countermanded, and because of this, our main island protectorate in the Persian Gulf, Abu Musa, has been attacked by Gulf Cooperative Council air forces."

  Khamenei seemed surprisingly relaxed as he heard the news--well, probably not surprising. It wasn't from divine inspiration that he'd first heard about it, Buzhazi knew, but from his contacts in the VEVAK, the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

  Buzhazi had no control of that group--they reported directly to the Council of Guardians and to Khamenei. "What kind of damage was sustained? What casualties?" Khamenei asked.

  "Few casualties, thanks to Allah, and only a handful of injuries," Buzhazi said dismissively. "The attack was directed against the Silkworm and Sunburn anti-ship missile emplacements, and the major port facilities.

  Unfortunately, the attack caused some damage."

  "My information says the damage was considerably more than that," Khamenei said.

  It had been less than an hour since the attack, Buzhazi reminded himself, and Khamenei already had a briefing from his intelligence people--very efficient work for a pious holy man. This man did not sit contemplating his navel in an ivory tower. He was fully engaged in the operation of the government. "Regrettably, that is true," Buzhazi said. "But island defenses will be restored by the end of the day, and until then, we have naval and air forces on the scene to maintain security."

  "How fortunate," Khamenei said, almost in a whisper, like the hiss of a snake's tongue. "But your defensive strategies for Abu Musa seem to have been somewhat shortsighted"

  "Eminence, with all greatest respect, that was not the case," Buzhazi said. "The defensive systems I placed on the island were designed to protect the defensive anti-ship missile emplacements from high-and low-altitude air threats as well as massed maritime threats. The island was under surveillance by long-range radars from Bandar Abbas and by short-range radars from Abu Musa Island itself. In addition, we have seven thousand troops on that island to defend against amphibious assaults, all very much aware that our enemies were see
king to destroy those weapons and take those islands from us at any time. All island defenses were fully functional and on full alert."

  "And so why were these defenses so easily destroyed, General...?"

  "Because President Nateq-Nouri countermanded my general orders to launch on alert," Buzhazi said angrily, "and instead ordered that, unless the island was unmistakably under direct attack, that all launch orders be issued by the Defense Ministry in Tehran, not by the on-scene commanders.

  It was madness! I argued against that policy and appealed to reverse the order..

  "The Council of Guardians has not received any such notification or appeal," Khamenei pointed out.

  "I was going to present my arguments in person with your representative at the next meeting of the Supreme Defense Council," Buzhazi lied, knowing full well that Nateq-Nouri had never countermanded any of Buzhazi's orders. The policy of "launch on alert"--fire without warning on any vessel or aircraft that crossed Iran's claimed borders or boundaries--had never been an official peacetime policy of the Iranian government except over Iran's most highly classified research centers, bases, or over the capital or the holy cities. The simple fact was that Iran possessed few trained individuals and workable air defense systems for very low-altitude air threats; even if the forces on Abu Musa had had "launch on alert" orders, they probably wouldn't have been able to stop the attackers.