by Isaac Stormm
About 15 minutes later, the radio spoke. “You men on the port side,” it was the pilot. “Look out the window. You can see the lights of Tehran way in the distance.”
Men gathered around the small windows and motioned for Foxmann and the others to come over. They gave his view priority and indeed he did see the ocher halo and endless twinkles expanding in the distance. A veritable lake of glowing dots. No Israeli had seen this before. And at that moment, immense pride washed over him. “Quite a view,” he said, letting another take his place. The loadmaster met him and walked back to the seats. He held a finger up and yelled “We’re three minutes out. The pilot will call over the radio that we’re starting our descent.”
“Please return to your seats. We are about to turn the interior lights out,” the pilot called over the radio. Everyone scrambled back to their places. The dull interior light shut off. Everything went completely black. “Turning off engines.” The engine noise began to fade, slow at first then there was no noise at all.
The plane dipped its nose. Foxmann’s stomach rose toward his throat. It was if they were on some strange carnival ride, and the sensation tickled his innards as the plane stayed at around 15 degrees negative angle of attack.
The C-130s punched through a small cloud descending at a rate of about 15 feet per second. Foxmann pulled his NVGs down and took a look around and saw the same thing. The men took deep breaths as he did. Some were trying to ward off vomiting. They clutched their stomachs, and for a second he too thought he would hurl his last meal. He relaxed and breathed deeper, the strange tickling in him becoming an ache, feeling like a weight about to shoot upward. He leaned over to the small window. He could only see blackness. Now, he wanted off this thing to feel solid ground, something to take him from this sudden journey toward nausea.
The plane rose beneath him and he felt gravity pitch him back in the seat. The landing gear unfurled in a buzz beneath his feet. They were flaring, pitching the nose up to slow the dive and touch earth. They slammed down and bounced high in the air before coming down much lighter, almost imperceptible in the second contact with ground.
He listened and actually heard the grinding of the brakes as their rollout slowed a little more each second. A gentle shove forward and he felt the plane settle on its gear. “Stand up!” he yelled. The element shot up from their seats. The time for queasiness and any other emotion they’d felt buried itself. They turned as one to face the cargo door. The moment they did, it began to open and the first thing they noticed was the warm air from part of the tailwind that helped the aircraft down. It blew around and between them then vacated back out into the night. Foxmann raised his hand and motioned forward.
He hunched down and sped out into the night. Everyone else followed, dividing into their detachments. “Report in when perimeter is secured,” he whispered into the mike.
He looked over his shoulders at the other two C-130s. They had come to a stop almost at the same time and the detachments were swarming about, methodical in their motions. He saw the perimeter teams cordoning off the front and rear of the planes. When they stopped moving, he heard, “Cordon one, Cordon two, Cordon three, secure.”
“Affirmative,” he said. “Perseus walks the earth.” He turned around toward the cargo door. “Bring them out.”
From within, he heard an engine rev high sounding almost like a motorcycle. It shifted into a lower rev, then the ATV eased down the ramp followed by the other two. They were laden with gear in the form of packs attached around their exteriors and on their roll frames. They pulled off to the side, and Foxmann saw his men already formed up along the left side of the plane’s fuselage.
He walked over to acknowledge them, “Now it begins.” He nodded. “Move out.”
With Foxmann at the helm, they spread out and joined up with the other two units. The 170 men planted their mountain boots in the hard earth and moved as one toward the lights of Qom, still on and blaring a whitish halo skyward over the facility obscured by a hills outline.
“It will come into view once we get over that,” he said, voice steady, not rattled by his quick walk just below that of a jog.
When they reached the bottom of the hill, he motioned for the recon teams to move ahead. They trotted up the relatively steep incline that was more like a giant mound with sparse vegetation and absent rock or trees. Once they disappeared over the crest, he motioned the rest of the force upward.
He dug his boots into the earth and propelled himself in quick steps, NVGs focused on the sky above. He slipped once the earth became looser near the top. He grabbed the crest and with both hands pulled himself up and over.
The sight took his breath away. The picture in his NVGs bloomed solid white. He flipped them up. It was still almost a mile distant yet its expanse stretched much larger than he anticipated. From the mountain out to its southern most fence, it filled every bit of its one and a half square miles. There were multitudes of lamps that formed around its perimeter and many more on buildings and along service roads that wove like a ribbon through it.
“Alright. This is what all the training was for.”
He estimated the recon team was about two hundred meters down the hill on the plain.
He flipped the goggles down. “Let’s go.”
Tel Aviv
Israel
Situation Room
Grozner sat looking at the electronic map. He had the radios of each strike aircraft piped into the room. Now, “Stand by,” he heard the air units say several times. “Commence attack” followed. Then the first good news coming a few seconds more. “Good hit.”
“Where was that?” he asked Metzer.
“Arak. We should be getting—“
“Music on.” Blared through the speaker.
Grozner looked at Metzer, wanting an explanation.
“Somebody’s being tracked by a missile. ‘Music’ is slang for Electronic Counter Measure system.”
“Missed. Veering back on target, now,” a calmer voice answered.
Grozner thought to Foxmann. Don’t let us down, man. If we hit nothing else, as long as you do the job, we’ll have taken a significant bite out of their capability.
Qom, Iran
From his viewpoint he studied the terrain. The downward slope of the hill was smooth enough for the ATV’s, and the vegetation increased to within 50 meters of the plant. Enough trees and bushes to cover an advance if done in small groups. What he really feared were acoustic sensors which detected footsteps. No one could confirm or deny this, and it remained a sure thorn that would shadow his decisions all the way to the breach.
He heard a faint buzz behind him. Turning around, he saw the ATVs coming to the hill. They better get moving, he figured he wanted to be on the plain when the first shots were taken at the towers.
“Move out.”
They flooded over the crest sliding down the opposite slope. They planted their feet on harder ground again, still maintaining an orderly formation of evenly spaced units. They hunkered down even more, negotiating the bushes with the lights of the plant growing slowly closer. When they were within 150 meters of the fence, Foxmann ordered a halt.
“Sniper teams set up.” It’s still a good angle. He could see into the guard towers which looked like some small building with a set of stairs winding around it, instead of the usual thatched roof with sandbags often seen in war films. Though capable of holding several men, a look through the binoculars saw only one.
“How many at the other one?”
“Taking a look now,” came the reply. “One.”
Hell is breaking loose all over this country and there’s only one guard in each. They don’t yet know. And they won’t live to. We’re lucky, he figured. He looked over at the nearest sniper team seeing the shooter rest the weapon, a silenced .30 caliber M110 on the shoulder of his spotter.
He watched the man’s left eye close as the other looked down the lengthy variable power scope sitting just behind a stubby night scope. He saw t
he green hue from it reflect just a little on his darkened face. “Ready.”
“Ready,” reported the other.
“Take them down,” Foxmann whispered.
He watched the upper torso of the man standing in one of the windows. The rifle sounded a muffled crack as its bullet broke the sound barrier leaving the barrel. The target jerked and fell, his killer leaving a small round hole in the middle of the glass. “Tango down.”
“Tango down,” the other called.
Damn, that was easy. Maybe too easy. And where were the guards with the dogs? “Alright, prepare to breach.” Foxmann studied the fence and saw no person or reaction from anything inside as a line of men moved up letting the tower mask their approach. Out came the wire cutters, and two men began snapping the jaws, quickly cutting the wire from the ground to their height. They then changed the pattern, snipping outward to provide an entrance for the ATV’s. More men moved up to them, and waited like a coiled spring for the word.
Foxmann moved up toward the front of them, breathing slow exercised breaths, carbine raised to his chest. When he reached them, he nodded and gave the thumbs up.
“Ready to breach,” the other team called.
This is what his whole life up to this moment was about. Nothing else came close. Up went his hand. “Stand by”… He moved into the breach. “Go.”
The other men stayed on his back and followed him through, parting and racing for the preassigned targets. Foxmann reckoned the barracks to be where any trouble might start, but he left that to his boys as he focused on the power station in the mountain opening. There would be people there, too. They had to die. Civilian or not. That was the orders.
The cavern was enormous. Approaching him was a long hall that seemed to disappear into infinity. At its end he just made out double doors. Beyond that, he knew there were access doors on either side so he got up and started running with the rest following him. He prepared to yell for a breach when he noticed a door on the side. “Detachment, take this one,” he called. “We’ll take the other,” the leader of the second detachment yelled as they rushed by. Foxmann reached and pulled it open. Up went the carbine. Inside was a bank of mainframe computers with the console and two empty chairs. There was another door on the other side. He raced for it, pulled on it and opened it. Another hallway. Bright but not like the first one. No halogen-like glare. instead, a warm almost soft glow to another single door. It flew back suddenly. His aim point centered the blackness. A momentary fuzzy outline just appeared as he stroked the trigger. A double tap caused it to fall immediately. The red dot shifting left to right prepared for anybody else to jump out. He moved toward the body. It wore tan overalls and clutched a pistol. Where the hell was everybody? He figured they'd be jumping out from every corner trying to shoot at him. He felt for a switch. There it was. He flicked it on and realized he was in a small control center with a glass window which gave only darkness and more empty chairs behind consoles and another door. "Goggles down.” He flicked off the light and reached for the door. It was locked. "Breach." He pulled the small square plastic explosive from his vest and pressed it against the handle. They backed up through the other door.
He knelt on a knee, and pressed against the wall. The loud pop was barely audible in his earphones. Weapon up, he burst through and was about to cross the threshold of the second when two figures rounded the corner, Kalashnikovs at waist level. His red dot jittered under the recoil making both men twirl and collapse. Around the corner he went, coming to a platform where it opened up into the cavern again. The feeling told him he was about to reach the main centrifuge area. "Holdup," he cried out and skidded to the corner where the platform began. The lights were on, the cavern making the goggles bloom with whiteness. "Goggles up." He peered around the corner and the sight stole his breath. Row upon row of gray centrifuges. Well within the 1600 or so he imagined. He trained his view a little further to the right and saw that no one was walking the aisles between the machines. And if that wasn't all, looking across the expanse of machinery, he saw a terrace where even more rows were. Light reflected off of them making the cave appear broader and he could tell the machines were still working by the low hum carrying across the floor. Then it hit him. So many. He wondered if they had enough explosives to get them all. If they didn't, he’d have to come up with something or somebody else had to. Then it hit him. They probably didn't have enough explosives to get all of them.
He turned to the group. "All right, here it is. There's bound to be somebody on the floor waiting for us. I don't think they all would've evacuated. Let's take it slow."
The centrifuge room was far more massive than the entrance cavern. It looked to stretch about three football fields and was another two football fields in width. It was the largest area he'd ever seen and estimated. He expected it to be big but the actual site was impressive. All 1,600 centrifuges on the main floor. Or so he'd expected. For on a terrace on the other side of the floor was another field of centrifuges. Probably about 500 more. He figured they had enough explosives to take care of the ones on the main floor but the others? Something would have to be thought of. "Taking the floor,” he radioed. He motioned the others behind him as he leaped over the platform. The moment he landed, he caught sight of an AK-47 coming around from someone hiding to his right between the rows. No time to take him, he dove between some machines as did other men just as the rifle unleashed a burst of 7.62mm steel jackets their way.
Foxmann lay on his side trying to see through the tiny gaps between the machines and spot the attacker’s legs. No, too narrow. He pushed his back up against one of the machines and raised the carbine. With the AimPoint at eye level, he swung around. The AK came around too, belching flame. He didn’t duck and let loose a single shot that hit the attacker’s exposed forearm. The rifle dropped and the rest of his men rushed toward it. He covered them as they fired a series of double taps. Done. He needed to move. Like the others, he started weaving through the aisles, the band of men swerving each aisle clear like a long snake, the movements refined, almost ballet-like in their flow. The red dot sights provided the beacon they followed and anything that stepped within its periphery was dead.
An alarm blared from somewhere. The expanse of the facility made the sound echo off the walls, becoming more intense than usual. Foxmann stopped his search and looked toward the walls. He saw what looked like speakers over the control room though he wasn’t certain that was where the sound was coming from. For the hell of it, he raised his rifle and fired one shot. The speaker shattered. Not the source of the annoyance. He heard another gunshot behind him and turned to see a piece of metal dangling from over the platform where he had entered. Everything became silent except for the voices on the radio telling the different areas they breached, and the one he most wanted to hear came last. “Heading toward the control room.”
He finished his search and stepped out of the aisle to look toward the entry door. It was almost exactly like the one in the shoot house. What were the odds? The door slowly began to swing open. It too was steel reinforced and small black objects sailed from the gap that opened up.
“Smoke grenades. Is that you?”
“Negative. It’s them.” Just then the lights shut off. His heart raced, but only for a moment. He snapped the goggles down and was soon enveloped by the white smoke. Gunshots rang out. More AKs. This was some sort of counterattack. He ducked back into the aisle. What next? Get to a platform. Any platform. He headed back to where he had entered. The firing was earsplitting and spreading. He could tell that. Only a few shots returned by his boys. They couldn’t see anything either.
He stretched out a hand, fingers in the white feeling, for any kind of protrusion or obstacle to grip. There, he felt the platform press against his palm. He pulled himself up onto it, squatted, and aimed where he thought the gap was. Then he saw it. A shadow flit from an opening in the smoke. It disappeared before he could get on it. The Iranians were pouring through the gap. He was sure of it.
He heard the bullets zip about him as he continued climbing. Once he reached it he stayed prone, unslung the carbine and began firing.
They planned for this. This is their ambush, he thought. Damn it, where were the others? “We need you in a bad way. Catwalk to your right. Take them down.” He sighted on one and squeezed a shot. One dropped. The AKs continued firing, the smoking rifles only stopping when spent magazines were ejected and fresh ones inserted.
“Entering now.”
At first he could see nothing. Then he saw them. One after the other climbing up a ladder to the catwalk nearest the gap, the shooters oblivious to the movement. A bullet ricocheted by him and he stayed focused and firing on the shooters just when they started falling like dominoes under Charlie detachment’s withering fire. A hand grenade tossed, landed between the Iranians and exploded, splitting the catwalk in two and spilling them down into the smoke.
“You’re clear,” he called .
“Sorry. We got held up.”
He motioned for the other four men to wait until he could send reinforcements. Charlie detachment took up searching the heights on the furthest side, and he slipped back down the ladder into the smoke which slowly dissipated before him, every shape started defining itself again. Then he realized, no more gunshots.
“Resume clearing.” He raced for the control room followed by the team, reaching it he found it opened and abandoned. The console board was calm, the amber status lights, which signified normal temperatures and environment, unblinking. This reassured him.