Dale Brown - Shadows Of Steel

by Shadows Of Steel [lit]

  For the second time since being transferred to the prison facility, Carl Knowlton was replaying the death of the S.S. Valley Mistress in his tortured mind's eye. It had been the most horrifying experience of his life. He had seen the aftermath of the Iraqi Scud missile hit on the barracks at Khobar during the Gulf War, where 117 American soldiers had been killed or wounded; he remembered the thousands of square miles of burning oil fields of Kuwait, when he thought that he was seeing a bit of hell right here on earth. But the air attack against the Valley Mistress had been the worst by far. The ship had felt so small, so helpless, as the sea rushed in to claim it. As the sea had poured into the crippled ship, the old bitch had literally screamed--its oil-fired engines first grinding to a painful halt, then tearing themselves apart, then exploding from the stress and rapid cooling. The scream had been like a loud siren, like a wild animal caught in a trap This time, though, Knowlton had not been awakened by his nightmare, but by the sounds of real sirens--air raid sirens. He rolled painfully to his feet, his pants creaking from caked-on sweat, oil, and salt. The oil-fire burns on his arms, shoulders, and neck were wrapped in someone's T-shirt, the pus and sweat making the cloth stick painfully to the burns.

  "You all right, sir?" a young Marine lance corporal, J. D. McKay, asked. "You cried out."

  "Sorry, Corporal," Knowlton said. "Real bad dream."

  "The guards might come back if they heard you--we gotta be careful," McKay said. McKay had a right to lecture a superior officer: the Iranian Pasdaran soldiers had obviously recognized who McKay was right after his capture, because they had separated him and beaten him senseless, bludgeoning his face, breaking in teeth, ripping out hair, and breaking fingers. He definitely did not want to attract any more attention to himself.

  "Right. Sorry." Embarrassed, Knowlton stepped over to the one window in the room he and the Marine soldier occupied. The window was too high; Knowlton couldn't see anything, and he was too weak to pull himself up onto the sill.

  "Hop up, sir," McKay said. Knowlton turned. McKay was crawling on his hands and knees toward the sound of the siren coming through the window.

  "No, McKay, I can't.

  "Get up, sir, and see what's going' on," McKay said, and the young Marine offered his back--probably the only part of his body not broken--as a footstool. Knowlton clapped the young soldier on the back, then painfully climbed up to peer out the window, pulling himself up onto the wall by the bars on the window to avoid putting his full weight on the kid's back.

  The window was open but covered with metal louvers, so he could see only a few slivers of open sky outside. Still, it was enough: "I see searchlights," Knowlton reported. "Jesus, hard to believe anyone on this planet uses antiaircraft searchlights anymore...

  I see a SAM lifting off north, looks like a Hawk, missile flying southwest... there goes a second Hawk... no secondaries, no flashes... third Hawk lifting off... still nothing." He climbed down off the Marine's back. "Somebody's out there, dammit. I think... I hope it's one of ours He pulled off his T-shirt, painfully ripping off the scabs and loose flesh from his burns.

  He tore a long strip of white cloth from the bottom of the T-shirt, then removed his trousers, tore a long strip off each pant leg, and began knotting the three pieces of cloth together.

  "What are you doing, sir?"

  "Trying to create a flag for whoever's out there," Knowlton said.

  "If they see it, they'll know where to look for us." He ripped a piece of reinforced trim from the T-shirt's collar, tore it into thin strips, and tied that to the louvers so it could not be seen from the cell; then he stuffed the trousers and T-shirt pieces out the window through the louvers. It was hard to tell from inside the cell that anything was hanging outside. Knowlton stepped off the Marine's back. "Thanks, McK-"

  Just then the cell door burst open, and two guards entered. They jabbered excitedly in Farsi, and pulled Knowlton across the room and up against a wall. They then kicked McKay in the rib cage, sending him writhing in pain into the corner. They yelled at both of them for a few moments. Knowlton held up his burned hands to defend himself as best he could, but they saw his burns and decided they had seen enough and departed. They did not even think to look up at the window.

  "Jesus Christ, those motherfuckers," Knowlton cursed as he rushed over to the young Marine. He looked bad, but no worse than he had with Knowlton standing on his back looking out the window. He lifted the Marine up and propped him up in the corner so he could breathe easier. "You okay, McKay?"

  "The name's J. D., sir," the Marine said, with a weak smile. "I'm not feelin' very military right now."

  "I hear ya," Knowlton said. "Me neither. You breathing okay, J. D.?"

  J. D. clasped his broken ribs with his bent, twisted fingers.

  "For now," he said. "I just hope the beatin' was worth it."

  ABOARD THE OV-IOD-NOS BRONCO ATTACK PLANE "Down to twenty bundles of chaff, Major," the weapons officer reported in Arabic on interphone. "Twenty-five kilometers until we reach the shore."

  Riza Behrouzi swore to herself, then replied in Arabic, "I won't argue with the results, Lieutenant Junayd--we're still alive.

  Just make sure it stays that way."

  "Yes, Major," Junayd replied. "Eighteen kilometers to go." As bad as it was up in the cockpit, the young gunnery officer thought, it would be even worse for the five poor souls back there.

  The Bronco's threat warning receiver was beeping well before they crossed into Iran's territorial waters; the first long-range radar at Chah Bahar picked up the Bronco 100 miles into the Gulf of Oman, and they started their descent to get under radar coverage then. At fifty miles, even though they were flying less than 600 feet above the dark waters of the Gulf of Oman, the radar had picked them up once again; at forty kilometers, the first L-band Hawk acquisition radar was detected, and a few miles later they detected the Hawk's X-band target illuminators. That's when they decided to go down to fifty feet, using the AN/AAS-36 Forward-Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera and the radar altimeter, which measured the altitude between the belly of the plane and the surface directly below, to keep from crashing.

  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 commander 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 lo
oks 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.