Dale Brown - Shadows Of Steel

by Shadows Of Steel [lit]

  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 rounds, 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."

  The search was not pretty, and after a very short time Briggs wasn't feeling too heroic. There were prisoners in the cells other than Madcap Magician members. Briggs did not kill them, just searched them to make sure they had no weapons, but even though--Behrouzi warned them in Arabic and Farsi not to leave the cell or try to run until they had departed, all of them bolted for the door as soon as Briggs and Behrouzi had left the cell, and they were gunned down by the UAE commandos guarding the exits.

  They could take no chances with the lives of their own.

  But the final tally heartened them all: nine Madcap Magician members well and rescued. Two more members had been killed by the Pasdaran guards; one more was critically wounded. The main captive missing was Paul White himself. "Carl, do you have any idea where the colonel is?" Briggs asked.

  "No," Knowlton replied. "He was separated from us right away."

  "Any idea if there are any others in this building?"

  "I don't know, Hal, sorry," Knowlton said dejectedly. "I was unconscious most of the time, exhausted. I don't know how many men made it after the attack on the Mistress, how many we lost..." Briggs quickly polled the other Marines, but they couldn't be sure how many others had been captured or killed in the attack, either. Their best guess was that they had everybody. "I wasn't able to make contact with the others or try to find anything out, Hal, I'm sorry...

  "Forget it, Carl," Briggs said. "We'll search the entire building."

  But there was no time for that--one of Behrouzi's U
AE commandos ran upstairs to report that several heavy infantry vehicles were on the way. "Shit, it didn't take long for them to organize a response."

  "Our best chance is on the road," Behrouzi said. "We should try to steal a vehicle, try to make it out into the open countryside.

  The Pakistan border is only a hundred kilometers east." Briggs knew she was right--if they stayed in that building, they'd quickly be surrounded and chewed to pieces.

  But as they ran outside, they immediately drew heavy-caliber weapon fire from the infantry vehicles. The commandos' weapons were useless against the Iranian infantry--they'd brought weapons only for close-range work, not to shoot it out with infantry forces. "Back inside!" Briggs shouted. "We got no choice!

  Just then, the first infantry vehicle began to sparkle, then jump, then it burst into flames--and seconds later, they heard the OV-IOD-NOS Bronco fly overhead. The UAE Bronco crew had not high-tailed it for home after dropping their paratroopers--they were burning most of their return fuel on covering their commando's withdrawal. "Now's our chance!" Briggs shouted. "Run for the hospital! We'll try to-"

  The night air suddenly erupted into an ear-shattering blast of gunfire. One of the heavy armored vehicles following the infantry forces was not a troop carrier--it was a ZSU-23/4 air defense vehicle. Its four 23-millimeter cannons fired at a rate of 3,000 rounds per minute, blanketing the sky with deadly radar-guided shells. The Bronco was shredded by the murderous gunfire, cut into pieces and burning long before it hit the ground. The commandos and the rescued hostages had no choice but to retreat back into the security headquarters building. Two UAE commandos and two Madcap Magician Marines stayed on the ground floor, ready to take out the rest headed up onto the roof. the first wave of attackers "One lousy rescue this is turning into," Briggs said. All of the Madcap Magician Marines were now armed, and together they made a formidable force--but everyone knew their options were quickly running out.

  "You came for us--that's the important thing, Major," Corporal McKay told Briggs.

  "He's right, Hal--if you would have waited, we'd be dead," Knowlton said. "No one was talking, so we weren't good sources of information; we knew the U.S. government wasn't going to acknowledge us or try to make a deal for us. They were going to discard us right away."

  "We may still be discarded."

  "But at least we're fighting." McKay said. The Marine had broken fingers, swollen eyes, and could hardly breathe--but he was still ready to fight. "Thanks for giving us that chance, Major--I mean, 'Commander.""

  The building was quickly surrounded by the armored vehicles and heavily armed soldiers, and the assault began immediately. Heavy 100-millimeter breaching cannons blew large" man-sized holes in the walls on the ground floor, followed by dozens of volleys of smoke and gas grenades, then by Iranian Pasdaran troopers in a hastily organized full frontal assault. The American and UAE soldiers dropped several Pasdaran soldiers as they came toward the stairwells, but were quickly forced to retreat as their number grew. The commandos were much more successful at picking off the Pasdaran troopers up on the second floor, but soon the second floor, too, was filled with gas. One American Marine was shot in the chest and was carried up to the third floor by the others.

  Soon they had to retreat from that position as well, but with each retreat they were taking out plenty of Pasdaran troopers.

  Up on the roof, the sound of approaching helicopters meant that their time was quickly running out. At the same time as the helicopters approached, the ground units, carrying the dead Marine, made their way onto the roof. "Too many to count," was the simple report from a surviving Marine.

  A few moments later, three Iranian Navy SH-3 Sea King helicopters could be seen through the darkness. All of them were trailing rappelling lines, ready to drop soldiers onto the roof. All of the commandos took cover as best they could around the raised rim of the roof.

  Suddenly a breaching charge blew open the roof-access door, and smoke and tear gas poured through. Briggs fired, and two Pasdaran bodies piled up on the stairway sill. They were quickly dragged away by other troopers, and no others emerged. The doorway was open--a few grenades tossed through would make short work of everyone on the roof. Briggs cleared everyone from the portion of the roof facing the doorway and assigned commandos to cover it.

  "Anybody got any ideas?" Briggs shouted.

  "I am afraid we need to consider a surrender, Leopard," Behrouzi said. "We are outnumbered and outgunned."

  "I don't think the Iranians are interested in taking prisoners, Riza."

  As if to prove the point, just then one of Behrouzi's UAE commandos jumped to his feet, dropped his MP-5 submachine gun, stretched his arms out, and began shouting something in Arabic at a nearby SH-3 helicopter. "Get down, you fool, no!" she shouted in Arabic. But it was far too late. A heavy-caliber machine gun on the SH-3 opened fire, and the UAE commando was immediately cut down.

  "They aren't going to let us surrender," Briggs said grimly, "So we're going to have to fight our way off this roof. We've got the darkness to cover us. We'll try to pick up as many gas masks as we can along the way and take out as many of them as we can.

  Everyone just keep moving, keep-"

  Suddenly one of the SH-3 Sea King helicopters exploded in a huge fireball, less than 200 feet from the rooftop. Then down below, one, then two of the armored vehicles surrounding the security headquarters building burst into flames, followed by several rocking explosions in the security building itself. Briggs and Behrouzi cut down three, four, five Pasdaran troopers trying to rush up onto the roof--but they weren't attacking, they were fleeing some devastation behind them. Seconds later, another Sea King helicopter exploded, followed by the ZSU-23/4 air defense unit.

  The ammunition cooking off inside the ZSU-23/4 completely shredded the vehicle from the inside out.

  "What is it, Leopard?"

  "I think... I hope, it's the cavalry," Briggs said.

  Sure enough, it was. Out of the darkness, a large aircraft appeared. It swooped in toward the security headquarters building with incredible speed for an aircraft its size, its huge twin propellers acting as helicopter rotors. A Gatling gun mounted on its nose spat fire in several directions at ground targets as the huge aircraft moved with delicate precision toward the rooftop.

  With the nose and an FLIR turret peeking over the edge of the roof, the CV-22 Pave Hammer tilt-rotor aircraft settled just a yard above the rooftop, rear end in. The cargo ramp was open, and commandos were running out and taking security positions around the rooftop.

  Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Chris Wohl ran over to Briggs and Behrouzi as several Madcap Magician commandos helped the others to the CV-22 tilt-rotor. "Let's go, Major," Wohl said. "We're outta here."

  Briggs felt like hugging the tall Marine. "How in hell did you find us?"

  "Later," Wohl said. "Right now, let's get the hell outta here.

  We're bingo fuel, and we've got a tanker waiting for us off the coast.

  In less than a minute, everyone was evacuated off the rooftop, and the CV-22 was wave-hopping its way out over the Gulf of Oman. The CV-22's threat warning receiver beeped a few times, but they observed no missile launches or fighter pursuit. In ten minutes they were out of Iranian territorial waters, and a few minutes later they were refueling behind a U.S. Air Force HC-130N special operations tanker that had been dispatched from Bahrain to support the Madcap Magician rescue mission.

  "Practically the entire UAE government was watching you guys heading off toward Chah Bahar," Wohl explained once they were safely refueled and on the way back to Dubai. "Peace Shield Sky-watch reported the OVIOD Bronco belonging to General Rashid heading for Iran--they thought the Emir's son was defecting or something. When I heard about it on the air defense net, I had an HC-13ON scramble from Manama Air Base in Bahrain, we took a token on-load over the UAE, and immediately headed toward Chah Bahar. Somehow, I knew it was you: first the message about the carrier and the lone chopper heading toward Chah Bahar, then the r
ecall message "I almost got everyone killed, Gunny," Briggs said. "I lost two Americans, I got four UAE commandos killed, I lost their Bronco..."

  "Yes, you did," Wohl said sternly. "You executed an impossible mission without proper planning, intelligence, and preparation, including the basics like how in hell you were going to get your asses out of the target area and safely back home. You put yourself and your troops in mortal danger. It was stupid, Briggs, really stupid. You exercised poor, immature, and completely rash judgment as a commander"

  Wohl stopped, then nodded resignedly and added, "But you pulled it off, goddamn your Air Force bird-brain black ass. You saved ten guys, ten of your guys, and you didn't leave anyone behind. You improvised, adapted, and overcame. You used incredible bravery and guts, and showed real leadership. I wouldn't have done it that way, but I'm not the commander of Madcap Magician's strike force--you are."