Rolling Thunder (2007)

by Jack - Seals 04 Terral

  SATELLITE PHOTO ANALYSIS

  0945 HOURS

  THE operator, a young Army specialist, set the photograph on the scanner, then settled down at the computer. He grabbed the mouse, sliding the arrow to the correct icon. A couple of clicks opened up the program and the image appeared. He took another look at the photograph that had been sent over from the USS Combs. The circle drawn over the area of interest was almost in the exact center, and the specialist was able to quickly locate it on the screen. Now, after a few right clicks on the mouse, it had been enlarged ten times.

  Ma'am! he called out.

  The captain in command of the section walked over and took a look at the screen. What are we supposed to see?

  According to the request, they want that dark strip analyzed.

  Take it up four times more and print it out, she said.

  The specialist followed the instructions and sent it to the Hewlett-Packard color printer on the other side of the office; then, he walked over to wait for the result. It took a full five minutes for the picture paper to come out. He picked it up and took it back to the captain. What do you think it is, ma'am? he asked.

  She gave it a full five-second study. It's a road.

  That's what I think.

  What area is this? she asked.

  It's the salt marshes in southeast Iran, the specialist said. They border Afghanistan, sort of spilling over into it.

  Well, hell, the captain said, it doesn't mean shit to me. Package everything up and put it into distribution for the Two-Shop.

  I wonder why somebody would put a road through a salty swamp, the specialist mused to himself.

  .

  PASHTUN STRONGHOLD

  GHARAWDARA HIGHLANDS

  1300 HOURS

  YAMA Orakzai, commander in chief of the Pashtun Rebel Army, lounged on the sofa in the roomy cave he used as a combination headquarters and living area. His deputy commander, Khusahal Shinwari, was equally relaxed in a nearby recliner.

  Orakzai was dressed in a manner he had used for more than a quarter of a century. He wore a puhtee cap, an olive-drab slipover woolen military sweater, and green baggy bakesey pants. A pair of American Army boots liberally covered with waterproof dubbing completed his ensemble. His pipe bowl was filled with his favorite khartumi tobacco that the opium smugglers always brought him after making a run across Iran and into Turkey. He puffed absentmindedly as he gazed out the small opening of the cave.

  Shinwari was a hundred-percent native in his bakesey shirt and trousers. They were in the gray color that the Pashtuns considered the best camouflage when operating in their native mountains. A leather belt with pouches for cartridges was worn across his right shoulder. His feet were shod in chapati sandals with strips of blanket wrapped from ankle up to mid-calf as leggings. All in all, a stranger would not be able to tell these highest rankers of the PPB from their most subordinate mujahideen.

  Neither had spoken for the best part of a half hour before Shinwari stretched languidly, saying, The Iranians have been strangely standoffish lately, na?

  Mmm, Orakzai said. They need time to complete their preparations.

  They are almost Western, Shinwari complained. They do things in careful phases, moving like donkeys picking their way through mud.

  We need not worry about how many months or years they take, Orakzai said. You must keep in mind that we are no longer harassed by their soldiers when we carry the prepared opium powder through the north.

  That is an advantage, I admit, wror, Shinwari agreed, addressing him as brother. But it takes the excitement out of the journey. There is no chance to kill anybody, and the young men now come back bleary-eyed from boredom. He grinned over at his chief and best friend. I am surprised by your calmness. You have always thirsted for action.

  Orakzai put another match to his tobacco. I admit some impatience with this waiting around.

  YAMA Orakzai was sixteen years old in 1980 when the Soviet Union invaded his native Afghanistan. He had been a schoolboy in Kandahar after being plucked from his native village during a campaign to bring Pashtun youths into the cities for education. The idea was to return them to their people as intellectual superiors who would lead their people to modern civilized ways. Ironically, this was part of a Communist program, and the courses of instruction were heavy with political indoctrination.

  The trouble started when the Soviet Union became furious when their handpicked leader of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud, began easing out of their sphere of influence toward neutrality. The local Khalq Communist Party was also seriously concerned. They sought Soviet aid and support to organize a coup. The Khalq won the short, vicious rebellion and executed Daoud. The new leader, Nur Mohammad Taraki, took the country back into a Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist way of life. However, because of the now-strong presence of the Soviets in all levels of government, the population, particularly the Pashtuns, became convinced the regime was being run by foreign infidels.

  Armed revolt broke out in several provinces, and the Afghan Army responded. However, because of the unpopularity of the government, mass desertions soon plagued the officer cadre as the holy war expanded, making their effectiveness fade at a rapid rate. Within a short time, what the Soviets feared the most began to happen. A Communist government was going down the tubes. They began moving troops into Afghanistan to put a halt to the revolution. From that point on, the situation escalated into an all-out, deadly guerrilla war.

  Orakzai, like many of the schoolboys scattered throughout the national education system, ran away and headed for his home village to melt into the craggy mountains. He joined a mujahideen group that was typical of the resistance. Young boys and men from adolescents to graybeards started out with privately owned weapons, gradually building up more state-of-the-art arsenals by looting the dead Soviets who fell victim to their style of fighting. These mujahideen gave battle only when they had the advantage, and withdrew when they were outgunned and outnumbered. The American CIA came on the scene and began giving more weapons, ammunition, clothing, medical supplies, rations, and anything else the mujahideen needed to carry on their insurgency. The CIA also saw to it that these separate groups quickly began affiliating in spite of political and religious differences. The mujahideen united under the single mission to push the Soviet Army out of Afghanistan.

  Orakzai proved to be an able fighter and valuable to his commanding officer because of his education. He could do math, work out distances and routes on maps, and thanks to his schooling, he had a working knowledge of the Russian and English languages that gave him the ability to read captured Soviet technical manuals. Within a short time, he went from fighter to small-unit leader, planning and leading raids and ambushes. By 1985, he was twenty-one years old and a senior officer with over two hundred fighters under his direct command. When the UN mediated an agreement that was signed on 14 April 1988, the twenty-four-year-old Yama Orakzai was the overall commander of his mujahideen group.

  After the Soviet Army pulled out, fighting between moderates and the fundamental Islamics of the Taliban broke out. Orakzai was a moderate in this civil war, and when the Tal-iban won control over ninety percent of the country in 1998, he took his band and all his people up into the Gharawdara Highlands.

  Orakzai and his people did not stagnate in this self-imposed isolation. They easily got into the opium trade as smugglers, taking the illegal cargo to the markets in rural Turkey for sale to European crime organizations. The money was excellent, providing items of survival, comfort, and war. When the Taliban was beaten down, Orakzai saw it as an opportunity to take over the western part of Afghanistan for the Pashtuns. But the events of 9/11 caused his plans to hit a difficult snag. Armed forces of an international coalition were roaming the country, tracking down Islamic terrorist groups. Their various operations and missions made it difficult for him to organize any sort of revolution. After a couple of years, it began to look impossible.

  Then he came into contact with hard-ass Special Forces soldi
ers of the Iranian Army.

  Chapter 11

  OPERATIONAL AREA

  THE AFGHAN-IRANIAN BORDER

  20 APRIL

  0400 HOURS

  LIEUTENANT William Brannigan planned the ambush carefully. The grid coordinates of the road through the salt marshes where Iran and Afghanistan blended together were clearly marked on the map by Lieutenant Commander Ernest Berringer. The Skipper used his GPS to find the exact location. He would have liked to cross the international border and make a quick recon, or even send Assad and Leibowitz a couple of kilometers down the route for a close look and evaluation of the terrain features. Better yet, he would have preferred loading up the DPVs for bear and charging down the road straight into the frontier post marked on the satellite photo for an old-fashioned ass-kicking raid. But explicit direct orders from the SFOB denied him any chance of entering Iran.

  It was the old story: Go into the fight with one hand tied behind your back.

  Now Lieutenant Junior Grade Jim Cruiser and his two DPVs were in a carefully selected position close to the salt marshes. The vehicles were a hundred meters from where anyone from the Iranian side would cross into Afghanistan, and Cruiser, with Gutsy Olson, Pete Dawson, Doc Bradley, and Garth Redhawk, were arranged in a formation that allowed them to keep the location under constant surveillance. Their job was to alert the Skipper when and if the armored cars appeared, then run to their vehicles to form up to follow the bad guys. The Bravo vehicles' combat assignment was to hang back out of sight, ready to hem the enemy in when the ambush was sprung. If any enemy Tail-end Charlies decided to cut and run, Cruiser and his guys would make short work of them.

  The Skipper had the Alpha and Charlie vehicles arranged in a wide vee. The idea was to let the enemy get in between them while the locations of the individual DPVs would allow the Brigands to fire into the bad guys without having to worry about hitting each other.

  As soon as Brannigan felt the armored cars were the most vulnerable, he would order the SEALs to cut loose with Javelins and the armor-piercing rounds from the M-2s with their heavy .50-caliber slugs. Additionally, this ammunition was tracer to help the gunners accurately direct their fire into the targets.

  The four M-60 gunners Devereaux, Assad, Miskoski, and Puglisi would handle the Javelins. Each had a tube attached to a CLU, with two more loaded and ready to snap on and fire. If one of the eighteen-and-a-half-pound warheads hit an enemy vehicle, it would go through the armor like a lightning bolt through a cardboard box. The resultant explosion would turn anything in the interior metal, plastic, rubber, or human flesh into charred, ripped, and melted debris.

  The Alpha and Charlie DPVs were camouflaged in a special way. Conventional nets would only work if the vehicles were dug in. That was something Brannigan definitely did not want to do. It was of utmost importance that they be above-ground and ready to roll into action in split seconds. Since they were on flat desert terrain, throwing a net across them for concealment wasn't any better than having them out in the open uncovered. A special canvas and frame covering was thrown over the DPVs to give them the look of boulders. Outcrops of rocks were commonplace that close to the mountains, and this camouflage would appear natural to the environment.

  THE day's mission had been sprung on Brannigan's Brigands two days before on 18 April. It started when an approaching C-130 advised Shelor Field of its arrival less than an hour before touchdown. The aircraft carried Commander Tom Carey and Lieutenant Commander Ernest Berringer, along with the armor-piercing tracer ammo for the M-2 and M-60 machine guns. The other handy contribution to the de-tachment's munitions was extra missiles for the Javelins. The cargo also consisted of the special camouflage coverings, 5.56-millimeter rounds, and M-67 fragmentation hand grenades. The latter were necessary since the HK-416 carbines, unlike M-16 rifles, would be unable to use M-203 grenade launchers.

  When the two staff officers unassed the aircraft, they hurried to the SEALs' hangar. Brannigan and Cruiser were waiting for them in the office. Carey didn't bother with the formalities of a greeting. Get your guys in here, he snapped. We've got some big shit going down.

  Cruiser went to the office door and yelled over at the SEALs, who were once again doing PM on the DPVs because of the exposure to desert sand and grit. Senior Chief! Secure and take the detachment over to the far corner of the building.

  Aye, sir! Dawkins turned to the men yelling, You heard the Lieutenant! Move it!

  Everyone gathered in the indicated part of the hangar, where Carey and Berringer quickly set up map boards. As the SEALs either stood or knelt in a semicircle around them, Carey took the floor. Nice to see you again, he said. And I have an answer to a question that's probably been bothering you. From the AAR sent in by Lieutenant Brannigan, it was obvious you were not sure how those armored cars got to you at the UNREO camp. He turned and pointed to the enlarged satellite photograph mounted on one of the boards. See that gray narrow rectangle there? It is a road, gentlemen, that's built straight across the salt marshes on the Iranian border. It leads from the garrison shown here he used his laser pointer to put a red dot on the exact location of Chehaar Garrison into Afghanistan here. On the day of that memorable battle, they entered your OA in that manner, going between your OPs and straight to where your main group was. The result was a surprise attack that was even a surprise to the attackers.

  Bruno Puglisi was outraged. What're them motherfuckers doing in Iran?

  We don't have that full story down at our level, Berringer, the N-2, interjected. And frankly, I don't think all the facts are known even at the Pentagon.

  Brannigan was more than just a little pissed off himself. What about that fucking Limey or whatever he was? The UN doctor was positive about that.

  This information was passed on to my counterpart at British Army intelligence, Berringer replied, and he seems to think they can get to the bottom of that. There's a chance one of their guys deserted or was kidnapped, then defected. For reasons my guy didn't explain, they seem to be thinking that he is an AWOL. Evidently, the guy was a fuckup. They're still looking into it.

  By the way, Carey said. The Brits said if you could capture the guy, they'd like to talk to him.

  If we capture him? Joe Miskoski snorted. How the hell are they gonna talk to a guy that's been bent over double and had his head shoved up his ass? Because that's what'll happen to him if we get our hands on him.

  Now hear this, Carey said sternly. If you capture that Brit, you keep him healthy and able to respond to questioning. He'll be a walking, talking wealth of intelligence on the Islamic insurgency scene involving Iran. And we don't want to have to wait six months while he heals up from what you fuckers do to him.

  Aye, sir, Miskoski said insincerely.

  Jim Cruiser was puzzled. As I recall, Dr. Bouchier of the UN said the people in the armored cars were definitely Arab and he heard them speaking Arabic among themselves. Iranians speak Farsi. So what's with the Arabs operating out of Iran?

  Another puzzle, Berringer said. And it's yet one more we can't solve at our level. But we have gotten the word that this group is calling itself Jihad Abadi. That's Arabic for Eternal Holy War. In Farsi, the words for holy war are jange maghaddas. That's a big difference, so these guys are definitely not Iranians.

  Could it be rogue Iranian Army officers pulling some shit on their own? Brannigan asked.

  We do not know, Berringer said candidly.

  Okay, Brannigan said. Let's stop wondering about things and get back to the briefing.

  Good idea, Carey agreed. What we want you guys to do is catch the bad guys coming into Afghanistan from that road. Get EPWs, if possible, but if you end up annihilating that armored car company, then so be it. It will send a strong message to Iran or whoever is back of this operation.

  Sir, do you have any idea when they'll be rolling back into Afghanistan? Senior Chief Buford Dawkins asked.

  Negative, Carey said. You'll have to go out there and plan on staying up to a week or a bit more wa
iting for them to appear. Take enough rations to last no less than ten days, and enough ammo to fight a sustained battle.

  Alright, Brannigan said. I take it you want me to work out the OPORD. When should we start?

  Yesterday, Carey responded.

  NOW everyone was in position, biding their time in the barren environment of the desert. Off to the north, they could see the Gharawdara Highlands as a long smudge on the horizon. The view on the other three sides was more of the empty terrain without a tree or even a small knoll breaking the monotony of the Afghan vista.

  The situation mirrored the old military saying of Hurry up and wait!

  .

  0645 HOURS

  BRAVO TEAM

  PETTY Officer Pete Dawson held the binoculars to his eyes with the same intensity he would have used if standing watch aboard a ship. He had been on duty for forty-five minutes since relieving Pech Pecheur at 0600 hours, and his vigil had not relaxed an iota. However, the image in the viewing device showed nothing more than the blending of the brown terrain to the east with the dirty white of the salt marshes on the west.