Sword Point

by Harold Coyle

  Horn's wife, in an effort to lighten the mood, said it was the least they could do for the hero-to-be. None of the officers in attendance, however, even cracked a smile. Weir, who had been in Washington for the past two days for a final round of briefings and updates before leaving for Southwest Asia, thought the remark in bad taste. Betty Horn meant well, but she didn't know what the men in the room knew. Had she been privy to the discussions and briefings her husband and Frank Weir had taken part in, she would never have made the remark.

  As soon as it was polite to do so, Horn hustled Weir into his den.

  Alone, and finally beginning to feel the effects of the fine white Rhine wine served with the meal, Weir turned to his host. "OK, Bob, you've been wanting to get me alone all day. Here's your big chance."

  Horn pointed to the bar. "Help yourself and take a seat."

  Weir, being in a surprisingly playful mood, furrowed his brow. "Is that an order directly from the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations?"

  Horn stopped and looked at Weir, then shook his head. "Yeah, that's an order. Fix me one, too, while you're at it."

  While Weir poured two tall glasses of bourbon over ice, Horn took off his jacket and sat down. "You know, Frank, you can forget about most of that bullshit you got today at the White House and the Pentagon. You know what your real mission is?"

  Weir answered while he handed Horn his drink and sat down. "Let me guess, end this war before it becomes unpopular?"

  "Close, but not quite. No, your job is not to lose."

  Weir took a sip of his drink before answering. "Now, that's a hell of a note to send a soldier off to war with. Why don't you just do as the Spartan mothers used to do and tell me to return home with my shield or upon it?"

  Horn leaned forward and in a soft but serious voice continued. "That, my old friend, is exactly what you are not to do. You will be the first American commander faced with the real threat of defeat in the field since the Korean War. Frank, right now there are four U.S. divisions in Iran.

  When your corps is fully committed, that will make seven. Those units represent thirty-three percent of the active-duty ground-combat strength of the Army and the Marine Corps. We can't afford to lose that, regardless of what happens to Iran, the Persian Gulf and the whole damned region. If the Russians annihilate that force, there's no telling what will happen in Korea, Central America, Africa and especially Europe. Do you realize that the only reason the Brits and the French are committing forces is so that we don't send more units tagged for NATO into Iran? Those people are quite concerned, to say the least, that if we go down the tubes the Russians will say, "What the hell, let's take out Western Europe too." Regardless of what happens, you must preserve your force."

  Weir leaned back and considered Horn's comments for a moment before he spoke. "Bob, are you telling me to avoid a fight?"

  "No. No, that's impossible. You're going to have to duke it out with the Russians. That's the only way we, or, more correctly, you, will be able to stop them. But you're going to have to be damned careful about when and where you pick your battles. We can't afford any long-drawn-out war of attrition or, on the other end of the spectrum, a high-risk operation. Stop them, bloody their nose, but not at the expense of your force."

  "That's just great, Bob. "Go out and kill Commies, but be careful."

  Care to tell me how I'm going to do that?"

  Horn was becoming agitated. "Damn it, Frank, you know what I mean. And furthermore, you know what's at stake."

  Weir held his hand up as a sign of peace. "I know, I know. I've thought about the whole ugly mess, and came to the same conclusion.

  After years of talking conventional deterrence, we finally are going to find out if it really works. And what if it doesn't? What if the Russians can't be stopped with conventional ground, sea and air power alone?"

  Neither man answered that. Both simply sat back and sipped their drinks.

  They already knew the answer to Weir's question.

  The Arabian Sea 0955 Hours, 25 June (0555 Hours, 25 June, GMT)

  Patiedce, planning and a good measure of luck were about to reward Captain

  Gudkov and the crew of the Iskra again. Late the previous evening their sensors had detected the sounds of numerous ships traveling at a little under twenty knots. Gudkov, going on the assumption that these noises were coming from a convoy headed for the Persian Gulf, plotted an intercept course that would place him near the front of the convoy.

  With no sign of escorting vessels in its immediate area, the Iskra sprinted until it was close enough to pick up strong, discrete signals and was within torpedo range. From that point, as the Iskra closed the distance between it and its target, Gudkov'slowed the boat, reducing the noise and the turbulence it created. There was no need to go charging in, letting the convoy's escorts know that he was there.

  Still relying on its passive sensors, the Iskra continued to track the convoy and began to ease into attack position. Now the sonar man was able to differentiate the signals and provide Gudkov with a better picture of what the Iskra faced.

  Four escorts and seventeen cargo ships of various sizes were now within range. The weapons officer on duty, who had previously been the engineer officer, was already selecting targets and computing engagement data. The former weapons officer was confined to sick bay.

  Immediately after the incident with the American carrier, he had become emotionally unbalanced and withdrawn. His being relieved of his assigned duties pushed him over the edge. Depression lapsed into a catatonic state. Only an occasional stream of gibberish, followed by fits of crying, reminded the crew that he was alive.

  To ensure that he did not create unnecessary noise, he was heavily sedated as the Iskra went about pursuing a war he had precipitated.

  Gudkov reviewed the flow of information and monitored the actions of the weapons officer. Four cargo ships were targeted for engagement.

  The Iskra could make the shot at any time, but Gudkov waited. He studied the movements of the escorts and watched for a break when they would be the farthest from the Iskra or moving away. While sinking cargo ships was important, it was equally important that he save his boat so that it could sink more in the future. Gudkov knew that one serves one's country best by killing the enemy, not dying for it.

  As he watched, the sonar man announced that a line of sonar buoys had been activated on the far side of the convoy. An anti-submarine-warfare helicopter was obviously working in that area.

  After a few minutes, the sonar man announced that two of the escorts appeared to turn away from the Iskra and head toward that area, where a second line of sonar buoys had been dropped and activated near the first line. Gudkov guessed that the Americans were pursuing a possible submarine on the far side. Now that the convoy was open to attack from his side, without hesitation he ordered the firing of four torpedoes. When all were away, the Iskra made a sharp turn, dove for deeper waters and began to take evasive actions as the escorts realized the danger and turned away from the phantom submarine they had been after.

  The torpedoes' sensors began to track their targets. The range and direction in which they had been launched made this easy. One after the other, they located a noise source, automatically activated their active sonar homing device and began to run for their targets at full speed. The convoy's escorts, blaring a warning, turned to find and attack the Soviet submarine and keep the incoming torpedoes from hitting their marks. But the initial surprise, the close range and the confusion handicapped their efforts to stop the torpedoes, and the speed of the attack and the skill of the submarine captain kept them from finding the attacker.

  The outcome had already been decided when the Iskra fired its torpedoes.

  Only the results needed to be harvested. Two torpedoes ripped into the hull of a cargo ship built to haul material, not survive torpedoes. The detonations sent geysers of water straight up into the air high above the ship's superstructure. Below decks, the force of the explosion smashed in the side
of the ship and buckled bulkheads. Crewmen who had been in compartments where the torpedoes hit were crushed or shredded by the explosion and by chunks of metal. As the explosion dissipated, water that had been pushed away from the hull of the ship when the torpedoes' warheads detonated rushed back toward the ship and into the gaping holes.

  On the bridge, the ship's captain felt his vessel heel over away from the explosion, poise precariously on a steep angle, then swing back toward the side that had been hit. Below decks, tons of equipment and numerous armored combat vehicles ripped free of the tie-downs that held them in place.

  Crewmen who were off duty were tossed about their confined cabins as if thrown by a giant invisible hand. Those who were lucky were knocked unconscious or killed instantly. The others suffered numerous injuries when they were impaled upon pointed objects or slashed by sharp edges or had bones snapped or crushed as they were slammed against bulkheads, cabinets, bunks and tables. Efforts to regain their footing and get out onto the deck were frustrated by injuries, darkness, a clutter of obstacles and the failure of their ship to steady herself.

  As the ship tilted again, the cargo, no longer restrained, slid across the deck and crashed against the vessel's damaged side. The sudden shift in cargo, coupled with tons of water rushing into the gaping holes, pulled the ship over onto its side. Within minutes it capsized and began to go down.

  Of a crew of forty-two, only three men survived the sinking of the Cape Fear.

  Chapter 9

  Go, sir, gallop, and don't forget that the world was made in six days.

  You can ask me for anything you like except time.

  — NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

  Bandar Abbas, Iran 0340 Hours, 28 June (0010 Hours, 28 June, GMT)

  In the distance a huge C-5A Galaxy transport could be heard rumbling down the runway. The whine of its engines cut through the clear night air as they strained to lift the cavernous body of the plane aloft.

  Like an approaching locomotive, the noise grew in intensity, increasing to an ear-splitting sharpness until the aircraft lifted clumsily into the air and turned toward the far horizon. The engines' pitch changed to a low roar that trailed off behind the aircraft like an invisible tail.

  Ed Martain sat on a gray metal folding chair outside his tent and peered into the darkness in the direction of the departing C-5A, trying hard to see it. He knew it was impossible to do so; its marker lights were already cut off and would remain off until the aircraft was one hundred miles out over the Gulf. There was no need to make it easy for the Soviets and their friends who tracked the comings and goings from Bandar Abbas. Unable to sleep and restless, Martain listened to the nonstop activity out on the runway. Each time a transport lifted off, he would wonder about its pilots and crew, where they would sleep that night and whether they would see their families. While he had always wanted to be a fighter pilot and derived endless pleasure from pushing himself and his aircraft to the limit, he envied the trash haulers who flew the long-range transports from their home station at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to Bandar Abbas and back.

  Despite the monotony and thankless ness of their job, they were lucky.

  Every thirty-six hours they would be able to walk into their homes and be greeted by wife and kids.

  Martain thought about the strange lives the transport pilots led. They would walk out the front door and go in to work just like any other day.

  Mission briefings, preflight checks and normal prep, just as always.

  Lift off from a real airbase talking to real air controllers and dodging normal civilian flight patterns. The long, tedious transatlantic flight would be no different from any other flight at any other time. Only when the transport swung lazily toward the northeast over Saudi Arabia did the mission profile change. That was where the insanity began. The turn, no different from any other flight maneuver, was a signal to the transport crews that they were heading into danger.

  No doubt they felt the same buildup of tension that he felt before going into combat. The mind begins to focus. Images begin to sharpen.

  Pulse rates slowly climb as the body prepares itself for sudden action and reaction. Though the transport pilots faced only the potential of combat, it made no difference to the mind or the body. Danger is danger, and the potential of mutilation or death elicits the same response from everyone.

  The lumbering transports flew along invisible air corridors that changed daily to keep the Soviets from planning raids on them. The pilots strove to maintain their aircraft within these established corridors, which not only acted as a means of controlling traffic going into and out of Bandar Abbas, but also represented the only place in the sky where the transports were safe from friendly antiaircraft fire.

  As they flew closer to Iran, people on ships prowling the Persian Gulf and combat air patrols flying between the air corridors had greater freedom to engage unidentified aircraft. The sky was divided up into areas other than air corridors.

  There were missile-free zones where any aircraft that was not positively identified by friendly forces could be engaged by heat-seeking or radar-guided missiles, missiles that could not read nation symbols on aircraft mistaken for enemy and break off the attack at the last minute.

  There were positive-identification zones where the pilot had to have visual ID of his target before engaging. The United States could not afford to allow its pilots the freedom to go about gunning down anything that flew and that didn't answer special electronic interrogation signals called IFF-identify, friend or foe. The skies over the Persian Gulf were still crowded with civilian air traffic despite a thirty-day-old war and the declaration that the Gulf was a war zone. There were many civilians who insisted on exercising their right to fly over international waters.

  Once on the ground at Bandar Abbas, the transport pilots entered an alien world. It was a world of substandard living conditions where Americans had to make extraordinary efforts simply to maintain life.

  The seemingly utter chaos, destruction and clutter were in sharp contrast to the neat, clean airfields at home, with their grass bordered runways, well-painted buildings and efficient organization.

  Here air raids left craters and scars, and hasty offloading operations resulted in mountains of discarded packing and blocking materials along the runways. The shuffling of aircraft, Army and Air Force, combat and transport, added to the confusion. Without exception, the transport pilots dreaded most the wait on the ground.

  After along flight, they were thrust into a dangerous and confused environment over which they had no control. They eagerly sought to make their stay in Iran as short as possible. Through careful control, wellplanned and — executed defense of the air corridors, and the extreme range that Soviet pilots had to travel to get at them, losses to the transports had been "minimal and acceptable." This, however, was a concept that was incomprehensible to a four-year-old child who was told that her daddy wouldn't be coming home anymore.

  For a moment Martain was overcome by a desire to go home. In that instant nothing mattered to him more than to see his wife and daughter.

  He wished there were some way he could go back with one of the transports for a day, a half day, an hour. All he wanted to do was hold his wife in his arms, feel her arms around his neck, run his hands down her sides and embrace her. Martain dreamed of looking into the round smiling eyes of his young daughter as he lifted her. The smell of baby shampoo in her hair and the ceaseless sweet babble of her stories without beginnings or ends evoked tears as the soft images passed through his mind.

  Martain stood and began to walk in an effort to compose himself. He would not be going home today. Nor tomorrow or the next day. Instead he would fly two or three missions, the same as he had done yesterday and the day before. He would continue to fly until the conflict had been resolved or he could no longer fly. Already the squadron had lost three of its aircraft and two crews. One crew had died with its plane as it disintegrated after being hit by a Soviet air-to-air missile. The crew o
f a second aircraft had ejected safely but had landed in the no man-land between the advancing

  Soviet and U.S. forces four days prior. Attempts to recover the crew had been unsuccessful. If the Iranians didn't take them the desert would.

  Omaha Flight had, to date, been successful in surviving and in carrying the war to the Russians. Martain had accounted for three confirmed kills, and his wingman had one to his credit. Martain's first kill had been so simple that he had difficulty accepting the fact that he had actually shot down another fighter. All he had done was listen to the AWACS as it vectored him into a position where his wizzo picked up the target. When the wizzo had good track on the target and the target did not respond to the IFF interrogation, Martain fired from a range of fifteen miles. The blip that had represented a multimillion-ruble jet fighter simply disappeared from his plane's radarscope and that of the AWACS. His second combat, a real knife fight during which he used his guns, was more like what Martain had expected. High-speed maneuvers with turns that pressed his body into his seat as the invisible vise known as Gs tore at his frame were countered and followed by the Soviet fighter he pursued. One minute Martain was the hunter, the next the hunted as the two opponents hurled themselves at each other. He had enjoyed that victory. He had worked for it and could see the shattered remains of the MIG plummet toward earth in a ball of fire.

  His thoughts were interrupted by. the sound of a sergeant running from tent to tent waking the squadron's air crews. Martain looked at his watch. It was still too early for normal operations. Something was up. He was about to turn when the sound of a C-5A transport rumbling down the runway caught his attention. Another transport was headed home, without him.

  Over the Persian Gulf 0405, 28 June (0035 Hours, 28 June, GMT)

  The buildup of Soviet air activity had been slow and near normal that morning. Transports on routine flights deep behind the lead elements of the advancing Soviet forces lumbered to and fro. Activity over Iraq started to build earlier than normal and began to appear as if it had a purpose for a change. Soviet recon flights, sent aloft to get a picture of the situation at first light, lifted off airfields around Tehran and were detected by the AWACS' radar and tracked by its computers. Operators at their stations watched and reported but were not concerned. Another day of war was beginning.