Bloodbath

by David Alexander

  The giant strategic heavy-lift aircraft was minutes behind the gun ship sortie, and soon the earsplitting roar of its four massive TF39-GE-1C turbofan engines (they are said to have the equivalent power of forty-eight railroad locomotives) began to churn up the night almost as physically as the growing cloud of exhaust-blown sand that was disturbed by its slipstream and wing vortexes spread through the crystal-clear desert air.

  The C-5 came in low, its rear ramp already lowered, and parachutes began to blossom. One after another, paletted and cushioned multipurpose Barack Obama Ground Combat Vehicles (GCVs) -- commonly called "Bam-Bams" -- mine-resistant and highly mobile JLTVs and crates of weapons, ammo and gear came popping out the back end of the enormous metal bird.

  In a matter of minutes, the cargo load was down on the ground close but well-clear of the landing strip, and the C-5 was turning in the air to make a second pass for a landing. Passing through clouds of smoke and fires from the burning Pasdaran military vehicles that flanked the landing strip, the super-transport screamed as reverse-thrust buckets came down and friction brakes were applied to landing gear. Before it had rolled to a complete stop on nitrogen-filled tires, Detachment Omega was hustling to ramp-off and get down to the job of unpacking its combat gear.

  Minutes later, with the sounds of automotive engines coming to life in the background, Top Sgt. Death was on secure JTRS communication to the final element of the mission.

  "We're on the ground, boss," the NCO reported. "Hoo-ah. We're good to go."

  Many miles away, and approaching their common objective from a different angle, Colonel Stone Breaux affirmed the transmission and told the Detachment Omega team members onboard the C-130H-30 Hercules.

  The smaller transport plane was coming in at a higher altitude. The landing of the first element at the airstrip was a signal that the assault on the largest and most difficult of the mission's twin objectives would soon commence.

  Now it was the turn of the element onboard the Herky Bird.

  Within a matter of minutes, the C-130H-30 had reached the drop zone for the HALO insertion that would send a company of Army special forces operators under Breaux's command gliding on the wind toward their target several miles inland.

  The plan was fraught with risk, besides being somewhat alien to Breaux, who was straight-leg infantry through and through. The paratroop landing had to coincide with Balls' main ground assault or Breaux's element would be caught in a quagmire with no way out.

  But neither Breaux nor the others tried to think very hard about that as the stick of parachutists lined up behind the jumpmaster and waited for his signal to take a walk into space and hit the silk.

  ▪▪▪▪▪▪

  At about the same time as this was happening, the second element of the coordinated assaults inside Iran had reached its first phase line. Boogie was a company-strength unit whose mission was to secure a smaller and less heavily fortified or defended objective than the first air-ground element, Balls, which had the job of taking control of one of Iranian leader Faramoosh Mozafferreddin's presidential palaces.

  These so-called palaces were much more than castles on the desert as the name might imply. Some of them were really small cities, complete with apartment blocks, villas leading onto artificial lakes with artificial pleasure islands in their midst, housing for sizable contingents of troops and SAM batteries to protect them from air strikes.

  In addition to all this, Mozafferreddin's larger "palaces" showed just the tip of the proverbial iceberg aboveground. These also harbored extensive subterranean networks of bunkers, research labs, military command posts, motor pool areas, and much else beneath the visible portion on the surface.

  While Mozafferreddin's guests or members of the Iranian maximum leader's extended family -- most of the presidential palaces were rarely visited by the Rais himself -- cavorted with harem girls in the lake or indoor Olympic pools, or sipped cool drinks beneath imported shade trees, or even played golf on the eighteen-hole courses some of the palaces featured on their country club-like expanses, cadres of weapons scientists might be at work in the underground portion of the palace developing who-knew-what diabolical weapon of mass destruction.

  Faramoosh Mozafferreddin, who considered himself the reincarnation of the ancient Persian potentate Abalgamash, legendary warrior king of the ancient Warakhshe dynasty, used this over-under scheme in virtually every weapons design facility that he'd built, and there were hundreds scattered throughout Iran, each one of them engaged in a cellular manufacturing or research process that compartmentalized the individual cells.

  Few besides the Rais himself possessed a working knowledge of the entire picture of Iran's weapons development programs.

  The same Iranian strategy that had led to the rounding up of human shields against fighter plane and Reaper air strikes, and that had filled the sleeping areas of the a supposed "goat cheese factory" at Qom with innocent Iranians above a chemical weapons plant, divided the presidential palaces into heavens and hells reminiscent of the ancient kingdoms of light and darkness ruled by Marduk and Tiamat of ancient Mesopotamian legend.

  Those in the heavenly realm disported above, while those in Abaddon slaved over infernal machinery in the fiend's workshop.

  The presidential palace at Mashdad was the objective of strike force Balls. It was a large palace as Mozafferreddin's palaces went, but the fact that it was more than just a glorified country club for the Iranian elite had been indicated by Western underground remote sensing scans using spy satellites.

  For years Iran had built no underground facilities, aware that US satellites possessed remote-sensing capabilities using thermal imaging, synthetic aperture radar imaging and magnetic anomaly detection. Then the Iranians got more adept at maskirovka, or camouflage and concealment, and tunnel hardening techniques, and started digging bunkers again. But the NSA's hardware also got better, so that it was getting increasingly more difficult for Faramoosh Mozafferreddin to hide his bags of dirty tricks underground.

  For one thing, earthbound magnetic anomaly detection by space-based platforms had become more accurate, and projects using massive amounts of metal were impossible to hide. The largest of the Soviet-supplied super guns might be buried beneath a false dome in the Mashdad palace. It was believed that this gun could blast a projectile through the dome and into orbit, at least if the Soviets had supplied Iran with artillery tubes following the original plan for the original-design Bull super gun -- the so-called Project Babylon super gun that Bull had once designed for Iraq -- as indicated by evidence found on the Antonov transports.

  This is why the main push was to take over Mashdad. Remote, space-based sensing had also indicated the possibility of large-bore barrels of the smaller, but still formidable, three hundred thirty millimeter tubes at a secondary installation. The OPPLAN included a provision for these to be assaulted as well.

  Balls and Boogie were preparing to take down these two objectives. Boogie was a mechanized ground force driving light armored vehicles. Boogie would be landed close to its objective, a medium-sized research facility. Using man-portable rocket launchers and small arms fire, in addition to the weapons on its rolling armor, Boogie would storm the lightly fortified weapons research station, conducting a recon by fire. Boogie's operational plan called for support by two of the three Viper gun ships that had shot up the SAM site and secured the landing strip several miles to the southwest.

  All three AH-1Z Vipers had refueled using portable fuel bladders dropped along with the other paletted cargo from the C-5B Galaxy's hold, and two of the attack helos had dusted off to fly toward Boogie's staging area. As Boogie reached its phase line, the helos were bird-dogging the team at a distance of about a kilometer, running a security operation in case of attack as Boogie rolled its armor toward its attack position near the installation that was its target.

  The combined SFOD-O special forces contingents would seize their individual objectives, thoroughly search the sites for evidence of the super gun
technology, and destroy in place any weapons found with special demolition charges.

  As of 0300 hours, Lima, all strike units were well en route to their tactical objectives under the OPPLAN.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The stick of paratroops waltzed out the side of the plane into the darkness of a moonless desert night, their night vision preserved by the red lights that had softly illuminated the cabin of the C-130H-30.

  The gear that had been lashed down in webbing against the bulkheads or balanced on the deck was now securely strapped to the backs, fronts, legs, arms, and in some cases, heads, of the treeheads jumping out of the hold of the plane and free-falling through space.

  Now that gear was secured against their bodies, clipped to MOLLE harnesses, and in the cases of grenades, combat knives and rifles, taped into place so that gun barrels were pointing down on landing, blades stayed secure in their scabbards, and cotter pins didn't catch on external objects and come loose.

  One after another the members of SFOD-O jump teams cast their fates to the desert winds as they fell through the C-130's prop-wash and steeled their bodies for the sudden jerk of the chutes unfurling and opening. And one by one this happened. One airfoil parasail after another popped into being above the desert-camo-fatigued soldier below it, until the entire stick of paras was underway.

  As the Hercules disappeared into the night, the airborne force began the first leg of its controlled, tapering descent, a descent that, if all proceeded according to plan, would land the troops right in the heart of the Mashdad presidential palace just as Balls' mechanized ground component -- code-named Gorilla -- and its single dedicated AH-1Z helo gun ship were attacking from the outside.

  If there were any major snags, if the timing was too far off the mark, or something unforeseen happened, there could be major trouble. But the team had its collective mind fixed on the objective. Nobody was thinking of failure. Breaux hadn't trained them to do that. To the fighters and killers of Omega the word didn't exist.

  ▪▪▪▪▪▪

  The stick of SFOD-O paratroops had no way of knowing about a conversation that had taken place several hours before inside a villa of a presidential palace distant by many miles from their current position. Had they been privy to the conversation, they might have felt differently about the chances of their mission's ultimate success. They might have had serious misgivings, to say the least.

  The speaker was Bashar Mozafferreddin, the Iranian president's eldest son, a man despised and feared by Iranians second only to his aged but still feared father. Bashar, who enjoyed pulling the teeth from the mouths and nails from the fingers of those who had fallen out of favor with him, and was rumored to have personally clubbed an adversary to death, was sitting at one side of a comfortable sofa of black Milanese leather that, like most of the villa's furnishings, had been custom-designed to his specifications.

  The sun setting over distant mountains cast a warm, red-gold glow across the room, lighting up the wall where a large flat-panel TV showed an Italian soccer match in progress.

  Bashar sipped a sherry from a cut-crystal goblet and his guest caught the flash of gold from the band of the Rolex Oyster on his wrist. Bashar set the glass down and continued speaking. The guest of the son of Mozafferreddin, who had spent the most part of several months at a smaller and somewhat less sumptuously appointed villa within the palace grounds, sat in an easy chair facing his host. He did not drink, but instead smoked a filterless Turkish cigaret.

  Dr. Jubaird Dalkimoni, terrorist bombardier supreme, inhaled the pungent smoke as he carefully listened to Bashar's words. It was important to pay close attention whenever one of Mozafferreddin's trusted associates addressed him, he had learned this during his stay as the Iranian president's guest.

  With Mozafferreddin himself -- who Dalkimoni had spent almost an hour with on two separate occasions since his arrival in Baghdad -- it was also important to think the right thoughts, or at least appear to be thinking the right thoughts.

  Mozafferreddin could be charming or he could be brutal, or again, he could be something in between. But Mozafferreddin was always paranoid, no matter how he might act, and on top of this he was convinced he possessed the omniscient power to detect treachery in the hearts of men merely by looking them in the eyes.

  If Mozafferreddin saw the wrong thing, that was all you needed. Mozafferreddin would issue an order and you would be taken away to meet your fate -- sometimes even shot by the Iranian president himself. Dalkimoni had been warned that the best way to act in Mozafferreddin's presence was to keep your mouth shut and say yes to everything Mozafferreddin said.

  Dalkimoni had found that this was equally good advice with Bashar, who had increasingly taken over many of Mozafferreddin's projects in recent years. So Dalkimoni listened attentively, smoking his cigaret while Bashar spoke.

  "I envy you, Jubaird, I truly do," Bashar said, his eyes not on the bomb-maker but on the Italian soccer team on who he had bet a million dollars to win against their German opponents. "Very soon your -- "

  Suddenly Bashar stopped speaking and stared at the screen. Then, with a curse, he flung his unfinished drink at the wall. An aide almost magically appeared, and began wiping at the stain while Bashar punched a quick-dial button on a compact SATCOM phone he unclipped from his belt.

  With pretended unconcern, Dalkimoni listened to Bashar berate someone on the other end of the line about how his team was losing, and on certain punishments that would await certain parties unless certain things were done immediately to drastically change certain events on the soccer field.

  Almost instantly, time was called in mid-play. A few minutes later, play resumed, but this time it was the Bashar's team that was winning. Dalkimoni heard Bashar promise someone a bonus, and then he put away the phone, his aide handing him a fresh drink before disappearing back into the woodwork.

  Still intent on the TV screen, and without so much as once having glanced Dalkimoni's way, Bashar picked up where he had left off before the interruption.

  "Your name shall be numbered among those mighty heroes of legend. You, Dalkimoni, hold the keys to the universe in your hands. For it is you who will shepherd the Winged Bulls to glory."

  "Thank you," Dalkimoni replied. "Yes, it is truly an honor as you say it is."

  "Have all the preparations been made? Is everything in order for your journey? There must be no mistakes, no slip-ups. Failure cannot be tolerated. You know this."

  "There shall be none, Excellency," Dalkimoni replied. "All is in readiness. The Winged Bulls shall be unchained and permitted to take flight. The prophesy made many thousands of years before shall be fulfilled."

  "Excellent. That is all I wanted to hear from you, Dalkimoni," Bashar said and turned back to the television. Dalkimoni saw that he was again caught up in the action of the soccer match and had already forgotten all about him. The bomb-maker stubbed out his cigaret in the ashtray on the end table by the side of the chair, rose and then left.

  They had been talking about nuclear bombs.

  ▪▪▪▪▪▪

  Breaux's parasail detachment continued to glide toward its mission objective. Although still distant by the better part of a mile, their rate of descent had increased as their altitude dropped. Breaux, at the lead of the airborne shock force, checked his wrist chronometer whose luminous dial showed him that his troops were meeting their timetable.

  He decided to break EMCON to ask for a situation report from his ground commander. He would do it by burst transmission over the Defense Tactical Internet. The encrypted data packets would travel up to a satellite then bounce down again, and would produce a random pulse of noise to anybody listening.

  Breaux used the wrist-top keypad linked by cable to the SATCOM phone nestled in a MOLLE pouch and encoded a message. It was addressed in conventional email format to the operation's domain name: sgt.death@operation.viper.mil. Minutes later the message was received and an answer flashed on the wrist-top's screen.

  "Am
in position. Good to go. Attack to commence at 4030 hours."

  Breaux keyed back, "Affirm."

  The strike was proceeding as planned. The timetable was being met. All operational elements were coming together. The Fat Lady was warming up her act.

  Breaux's parafoil team now could see the muted lights of the presidential palace growing closer and brighter. Each descending sky trooper knew that final preparations for landing needed to be made.

  Within minutes, the team got in close enough to clearly make out the guards in the towers surrounding the base and the missiles ready for launch at SAM batteries here and there on the grounds. They saw too the gleam of the artificial lake and the stands of plane trees along three sides of the vast estate's circumference.

  Of course the guards below soon spotted the down-dropping American soldiers as well, but the sighting had come too late to do the Iranians much good. At this stage the Gorilla ground element with its helo air support had already initiated contact with the enemy. As Breaux's parasail team came dropping in for the kill, new sights and sounds overwhelmed the stillness of the night. They were the sounds of battle, the strobing flashes of rocket strikes and belching muzzle flames of automatic small arms fire. And in the midst of it all, the sounds of men dying.

  ▪▪▪▪▪▪

  Barry White and Chaka Khan were fifteen minutes outbound from Zebra Talon at Jauf and cruising at eighty thousand feet. At that altitude whether or not the search-and-track radars of Iranian SAMs painted them or not was immaterial.

  They flew beyond the lethality envelope of all but the very best SAMs that the Pasdaran fielded, and as far as these latter went, they were at the very edge of their envelopes too.

  But the chances of their being caught by radar were slender at best. Both aircraft had radar cross-sections as small as the F-117A Nighthawk, but they were a hell of a lot faster and more maneuverable than the now mothballed stealth fighter.

  The planes could afford to come in high, and it was also tactically advantageous to do this. Coming in high they would have a better chance of spotting any Iranian fighter assets that might be scrambled before the unfriendly planes saw them.