by Tom Clancy
“We’re here,” the staff sergeant told him, touching his finger to the IVIS screen. “We’re going that way. ‘Cording to this, there’s nobody around to bother us, but we’re looking out for that. The enemy”—he changed the display somewhat—“is here, and we’re along this line.”
“How far?”
“About twelve klicks and we should start to see ’em.”
“How good is this information?” Donner asked.
“It got us this far, Tom,” the track commander pointed out.
The pattern of movement was annoying, and reminded the reporter of stop-and-go traffic on a Friday afternoon. The armored vehicles would dart—never faster than twenty miles per hour—from one terrain feature to another, scan ahead, then move some more. The sergeant explained that they’d move in a steadier manner on better ground, but that this part of the Saudi desert was marked by hillocks and ridges and dips that people might hide behind. The Brads were in a platoon, but actually seemed to move in pairs. Every M3 had a “wingman,” a term borrowed from the Air Force.
“What if there’s somebody out there?”
“Then he’ll probably try to shoot at us,” the staff sergeant explained. All this time, the gunner was traversing his turret left and right, searching for the glow of a warm body on the chilled ground. They could actually see better at night, Donner learned, which was why Americans had adopted the darkness as their preferred hunting time. “Stanley, come left and stop behind that bump,” he ordered the driver. “If I was a grunt, I’d like that place over to the right. We’ll cover Chuck as he comes around it.” The turret rotated and sighted in on a larger bump, while the Bradley’s wingman drove past. “Okay, Stanley, move out.”
THE ARMY OF God command section had proved devilishly hard to pin down, but now Hamm had two heloscout troops detailed to that single mission, and his electronic-intelligence section had just set up again, co-located with 2nd Squadron’s headquarters troop. They’d taken to calling their target the enchilada. Locate it, and disorganize the entire enemy force. Saudi intelligence officers attached to the ELINT tracks were listening to signals. The UIR forces had encrypted radios for the senior commanders, but those were good only for talking to other people with the same equipment, and with the gradual degradation of the enemy radio network, sooner or later the enchilada would have to start talking in the clear. One Corps and two divisional command posts had been hit, two of those almost totally destroyed and the other badly disrupted. Moreover, they knew roughly where III Corps was, and Army would have to start talking to that formation, since it was the only one so far not engaged except by a few air strikes. They didn’t have to read the messages, nice though that would have been. They knew the frequency ranges for the high-command circuit, and a few minutes of traffic would enable them to localize it enough for M- and N-helicopter-scout troops to dart in and start ruining their whole morning.
It sounded like static, but digitally encrypted radios usually did. The ELINT officer, a first lieutenant, loved eavesdropping, but missed his jamming gear, which had been overlooked in the POMCUS equipment sets, probably, he thought, because that was supposed to be an Air Force mission. There was an art to this. His troopers, all military-intelligence specialists, had to tell the difference between real atmospheric static and manmade static as they swept the frequencies.
“Bingo!” One said. “Bearing three-zero-five, hissin’ like a snake.” It was too loud to be atmospheric noise, random though it might have sounded.
“How good?” the officer asked.
“Ninety percent, elltee.” A second vehicle, slaved electronically to the first, was a klick away, providing a baseline for triangulation ... “There.” The location came up on the computer screen. The lieutenant lifted a radio for the 4th Squadron command post.
“ANGEL-SIX, this is PEEPER, we may have a posit for the enchilada....”
M-Troop’s four Apaches and six Kiowas were but twenty klicks away from the position, conducting a visual search. A minute later, they turned south.
“WHAT IS HAPPENING!” Mahmoud Haji demanded. He hated using this phone-radio lash-up, and just getting in contact with his own army commander had proved difficult enough.
“We have encountered opposition south of King Khalid Military City. We are dealing with it.”
“Ask him the nature of the opposition,” Intelligence advised his leader.
“Perhaps your guest could tell me that,” the general on the other side of the conversation suggested. “We’re still working to find out.”
“The Americans cannot have more than two brigades in theater!” the man insisted. “One more brigade-equivalent in Kuwait, but that is all!”
“Is that so? Well, I have lost more than a division in strength in the last three hours, and I still don’t know what I’m facing here. Two Corps has been badly mauled. One Corps has run into something and is continuing the attack now. Three Corps is so far untouched. I can continue the attack to Riyadh, but I need more information on what I’m facing.” The commanding general, a man of sixty years, was not a fool, and he still felt that he could win. He still had about four divisions’ worth of combat power. It was just a matter of directing it properly. He actually felt lucky that air attacks from American and Saudi forces had been so light. He’d learned a few other lessons fast. The disappearance of three command sections had made him cautious, at least for his own safety. He was now a full kilometer from the radio transmitters attached to his armored command vehicle, a BMP-1KSh, his handset at the end of a lengthy spool of commo wire. He himself was surrounded by a squad of soldiers, who did their best not to listen to the excitement in their commander’s voice.
“DAMN, LOOK AT all those SAM tracks,” a Kiowa observer said over the radio, from eight klicks north. His pilot made the call while the observer did a count.
“MARAUDER-LEAD, this is MASCOT-THREE. I think we have the enchilada.”
“THREE, LEAD, go,” was the terse reply.
“Six bimps, ten trucks, five SAM tracks, two radar tracks, and three ZSU-23s in a wadi. Recommend approach from the west, say again, approach from the west.” It was far too much defensive firepower to be much of anything other than the Army of God’s mobile command section. The SAM launchers were all French Crotales, and those little fuckers were scary, MASCOT-THREE knew. But they should have picked a different spot. This was one of those situations where you were better in the open, or even on high ground, so that your SAM radars could see better.
“THREE, LEAD, can you illuminate?”
“Affirmative. Tell us when. Radar tracks first.”
The Apache leader, a captain, was hugging the ground to the west, creeping forward at thirty knots now, coming up on what he thought was a ridgeline that would tip over into the wadi. Slowly, slowly, letting his own mast sensor do the looking. The pilot flew the airplane like a kid learning to parallel-park, while the gunner manned the sensors.
“Hold it right there, sir,” the gunner advised from his front seat.
“THREE, LEAD, start the music,” the pilot called.
The Kiowa lit up its laser-illuminator, an invisible infrared beam that aimed first at the far radar track. It was actually a wheeled vehicle, but nobody was being particular. On notification that the target was lit up, the Apache tilted its nose up and loosed first one Hellfire, then another five seconds later.
THE GENERAL HEARD the shouted warning from a thousand meters away. Only one of the radar vehicles was actually transmitting, and that intermittently as an electronic-security measure. It was radiating now, and caught the inbound missile. One of the launcher trucks rotated its four-tube mount and fired, but the Crotale lost lock when the Hellfire angled down and went harmlessly ballistic. The radar vehicle blew apart a moment later, and the second one six seconds after that. The commanding general of the Army of God stopped talking then, and ignored the incoming conversation from Tehran. There was quite literally nothing for him to do but crouch down, which his bodyguards made hi
m do.
ALL FOUR APACHES of the troop were hovering in a semicircle now, waiting for their troop commander to ripple off his Hellfires. This he did, about five seconds apart, letting the Kiowa guide them in, switching from target to target. Next came the SAM-launcher vehicles, followed by the Russian-made gun tracks. Then there was nothing left to protect the BMP command tracks.
IT WAS UTTERLY heartless, the general saw. Men tried shooting back, but at first there was nothing to shoot at. Some people looked. Others pointed. Only a few ran. Most stayed and tried to fight. The missiles seemed to come from the west. He could see the yellow-white glow of rocket motors racing through the darkness like fireflies, but he couldn’t see anything shooting them, and one after another the air defense vehicles were destroyed, then the BMPs, then the trucks. It took less than two minutes, and only then did the helicopters begin to appear. The security detachment for his mobile command post was a company of picked infantrymen. They fought back with heavy machine-gun fire and shoulder-launched rockets, but the ghostly shapes of the helicopters were too far away. The man-portable missiles couldn’t seem to find them. His men tried, but then the tracers lanced out, reaching for them like beams of light into an area now bright with vehicle fires. A squad here, a section there, a pair there. The men tried to run, but the helicopters closed in, firing from only a few hundred meters away, herding them in a cruel, remorseless game. The radio handset was dead in his hand, but he still held it, watching.
“LEAD, TWO, I got a bunch to the east,” a pilot told the Apache commander.
“Get ’em,” the flight leader ordered, and one of the attack choppers ducked south around the remains of the command post.
NOTHING TO DO. No place to flee. Three of his men shouldered their weapons and fired. Others tried to run, but there was no running and no hiding. Whoever flew those aircraft were killing everything they saw. Americans. Had to be. Angry at what they’d been told. Might even be true, the general thought, and if—
“HOW D’YA SAY tough shit in rag-head?” the gunner asked, taking his time to make sure he got every one.
“I think they got the message,” the pilot said, turning the chopper around and scanning for additional targets.
“ANGEL-SIX, ANGEL-SIX, this is MARAUDER-SIX-ACTUAL. This sure looked like a CP, and it’s toast now,” the troop commander called. “We are RTB for bullets and gas. Out.”
“WELL, GET HIM back!” Daryaei shouted at the communications officer on the line. The intelligence chief in the room didn’t say anything, suspecting that they’d never talk to the army commander again in this lifetime. The worst part was not knowing why. His intelligence assessment on arriving American units had been correct. He was sure of that. How could so few do so much harm...?
“THEY HAD A pair of brigades—regiments, whatever—there, didn’t they?” Ryan asked, getting the latest upload from the battlefield onto his projection TV in the Sit Room.
“Yep.” General Moore nodded. He noted with some pleasure that even Admiral Jackson was pretty quiet. “Not anymore, Mr. President. Jesus, those Guardsmen are doing just fine.”
“Sir,” Ed Foley said, “just how far do you want to take this?”
“Do we have any doubts at all that it was Daryaei personally who made all these decisions?” It was, Ryan thought, a dumb question. Why else had he told the citizens that? But he had to ask the question, and the others in the Sit Room knew why.
“None,” the DCI replied.
“Then we take it all the way, Ed. Will the Russians play?”
“Yes, sir, I think they will.”
Jack thought of the plague now dying out in America. Thousands of the innocent had already died, with more yet to follow. He thought of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen at risk under his distant command. He found himself thinking, even, of the UIR troops who’d followed the wrong banner and wrong ideas because they hadn’t had the chance to select their country or its leader, and were now paying the price for that mistake of birthplace. If they were not completely innocent, then neither were they completely guilty, because for the most part soldiers merely did what they were told. He also found himself remembering the look in his wife’s eyes when Katie had arrived by helicopter on the South Lawn. There were times when he was allowed to be a man, just like other men, except for the power he held in his hands.
“Find out,” the President said coldly.
IT WAS A sunny morning in Beijing, and Adler knew more than the other people in the discussion. It hadn’t been much of a detailed dispatch, just the high points, which he’d shown to the Defense attaché, and the Army colonel had told him to trust every word. But the information wasn’t widely known. The TV reports had to come out over military communications nets, and because of the time of day in most of America, those hadn’t reported much beyond the commencement of combat action. If the PRC was in cahoots with the UIR, they might yet believe that their distant friends held the upper hand. It was worth a try, SecState thought, sure that POTUS would back him up.
“Mr. Secretary, welcome again,” the Foreign Minister said graciously. And again, Zhang was there, silent and enigmatic as he tried always to be.
“Thank you.” Adler took his regular seat. It wasn’t as comfortable as the one in Taipei.
“These new developments—can it be true?” his official host asked.
“That is the public position of my President and my country,” the Secretary of State replied. Thus it had to be true.
“Do you have sufficient forces to protect your interests in that region?”
“Minister, I am not a military expert, and I cannot comment on that,” Adler replied. That was entirely true, but a man in a position of strength would probably have said something else.
“It would be a great misfortune if you cannot,” Zhang observed.
It might have been fun to inquire about the PRC’s position on the matter, but the answer would have been neutral and meaningless. Nor would they have said anything about the presence of the Eisenhower battle group, now flying patrols over the “international waters” of the Formosa Strait. The trick was to make them say anything at all.
“The world situation occasionally requires reexamination of one’s position on many things, and one must sometimes think carefully about one’s friendships,” Adler tried. It lay on the table for half a minute.
“We have been friends since your President Nixon first courageously came here,” the Foreign Minister said after reflection. “And we remain so, despite the occasional misunderstanding.”
“That is good to hear, Minister. We have a saying about friendship in time of need.” Okay, think about that one. Maybe the news reports are true. Maybe your friend Daryaei will succeed. The bait dangled for another fifteen seconds.
“Really, our only area of permanent discord is America’s position on what your President inadvertently called the ‘two Chinas.’ If only this could be regularized... ,” the Minister mused.
“Well, as I told you, the President was trying to express himself to reporters in a confusing situation.”
“And we are to disregard it?”
“America continues to feel that a peaceful solution to this provincial dispute serves the interests of all parties.” That was status quo ante, a position established by a strong, confident America whom China would not challenge openly.
“Peace is always preferable to conflict,” Zhang said. “But how long must we show such great forbearance? These recent events have only served to illustrate the central problem.”
A very small push, Adler noted: “I understand your frustration, but we all know that patience is the most valuable of virtues.”
“At some point, patience becomes indulgence.” The Foreign Minister reached for his tea. “A helpful word from America would be most gratefully received.”
“You ask that we alter our policy somewhat?” SecState wondered if Zhang would speak again after altering the course of the conversation ever so slightly.
; “Merely that you see the logic of the situation. It would make the friendship of our two nations far more substantial, and it is, after all, a minor issue to countries such as ours.”
“I see,” Adler replied. And he did. It was certain now. He congratulated himself for making them tip their hand. The next call on this would have to be made in Washington, assuming they had the time there for something other than a shooting war.
THE 10TH ACR crossed back into Saudi territory at 0330L. The Buffalo Cav was now spread in a line thirty miles across. In another hour, they would be astride the UIR army’s supply line, having gotten here without any notice. The force was moving faster now, almost thirty miles in an hour. His lead elements had found a few patrol and internal-security units in UIR territory, mainly single vehicles which had been dispatched immediately upon sighting. There would be more now, as soon as they hit the next road. It would be MP units at first—whatever the enemy called them—used for traffic control. There had to be a lot of fuel rolling down the road to KKMC, and that was the first mission of the Buffalo Soldiers.
SECOND BRIGADE OF the Immortals had been under fire for nearly an hour, when orders came to go forward, and the armored vehicles of the former Iranian armored division moved with a will. The two-star in command was in back of the flanking 3rd Brigade now, listening rather than talking, wondering about and thankful for the absence of American air power. Corps artillery had arrived and set up without firing to reveal its presence. They might not last long, but he wanted the benefit of their presence. The opposing force could hardly be as much as a full brigade on this side of the highway, and he had double that—and even if he did face a complete brigade, then his Iraqi comrades on the far side would loop around to support him, as he would for them if he found a clear field. Over the radio, on the move in order to prevent being attacked by artillery or helicopters, he exhorted his commanders to press the attack, as he followed on in an open-topped command vehicle. Now, if his enemy would just sit still in the positions they’d held successfully for the first attack, he would see about things....