Warriors of God

by William Christie

  "I entrust you to God. May thou be blessed," Nashazi replied formally.

  CHAPTER 6

  The two Iranian Navy missile boats moved as close to the shoreline of Umm al-Qaiwain in the United Arab Emirates as their captains dared.

  The summer monsoon season had begun on the Persian Gulf coast, and several storm fronts skirted its eastern edge. Driving rain and wind made nighttime visibility difficult. The missile boats, not noted for their seakeeping qualities in the best of conditions, wallowed in the chop. The captains were willing to put up with seasickness, since there would be few aircraft flying in such weather. If their plan worked, any chance radar contact would take them for the daily Iranian naval patrol to Abu Musa and Sirri islands, knocked off course by the storm.

  Not wanting to risk detection by using their radios, the two boats communicated by blinker light. If attacked, the captains had strict orders to abandon the Guards and run for the Iranian coast, since their vessels were irreplaceable.

  Of the seven states of the United Arab Emirates, Umm al-Qaiwain was both the poorest and the least populous. The population was generally confined to the Persian Gulf coast, the few towns little more than small fishing villages. In the emirates only Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharja were oil producers; the other four sheikdoms survived on the largess of their neighbors.

  Oil was the life blood of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Emirates, and for years they had kept nervous eyes on the possibility of an aggressive Iran using its Chinese anti-ship missiles to close the entire Gulf to supertankers. Used to throwing money at problems, the sheiks decided to construct an oil pipeline across an overland route to the Gulf of Oman, outside the Straits of Hormuz. If the Persian Gulf was blocked in some future conflict, they did not wish to be dependent on the goodwill of Saudi Arabia or Oman. From the large oil fields of Abu Dhabi in the south, the pipeline followed the coastal highway north to Umm al-Qaiwain, then across the peninsula to the state of Fujaira. Every major consultant informed the sheiks that the project was not economically viable, but they opted to go ahead anyway. Their coffers were bulging from the high oil prices resulting from the shutdown of Iran’s production.

  Iran had kept a close eye on the construction, noting the location of a key pumping station and pipeline maintenance facility near a small coastal village north of the capital city, also called Umm al-Qaiwain. This was the Guards' target. During the planning in Iran, an argument had been made for the low-cost option of cutting the pipeline at some secluded place. This had been brusquely rejected as having no impact. Money for repairs meant nothing to the sheiks. But a mission that hit a well-defended target and left destruction and dead men was another thing entirely. Such an act would make it quite clear that the Americans could never protect them.

  Except for the blinker lights, the missile boats were blacked out. On each boat three Zodiac rubber boats, already inflated and stowed between the missile launchers, were passed over the side and tied to the hull.

  There were fifty-four Guards in all, twenty-seven crammed aboard each missile boat. They slid one by one over the sides of the boats into the Zodiacs. The Zodiacs were slippery from the rain and salt spray, and their light weight caused them to bounce uncontrollably in the waves, springing out to the edge of the mooring lines and then cracking back into the boat. The Guards, straddling the steel decks, had to gauge the swell and launch themselves into the Zodiacs, taking care not to bounce out. The first man into each boat, with no one to help, had it worst. They secured safety lines and grabbed the next Guards as they hit.

  One of the Iranians misjudged his jump, slipping off the side into the water between the Zodiac and a missile boat. There was a short but piercing scream as the Zodiac bounced and sandwiched him against the steel hull of the missile boat After a moment of shock, the Guards resumed loading without a word. The crew of the missile boat got a brief glimpse of the victim as he floated to the surface twenty yards away. They did not turn the boat around to get him.

  Soon all the Guards were aboard the Zodiacs. They sat four to a side, with the coxswain in the rear and waterproofed equipment bundles in the center. When the men were settled, each coxswain started his outboard motor, which was specially modified with a cover to dampen the engine noise and an attachment that directed the exhaust underwater. When the captains of the missile boats were sure the outboards were running properly, they gave a blinker signal to each other and then to the rubber boats. The Zodiacs cast off their lines and motored away from the retreating ships. The missile boats came about and sped farther out into the gulf.

  The Zodiacs headed for the shore in single file, each signaling the one behind by using a flashlight with a blue lens. There was little interval between the boats, since the Zodiacs did not cut through the waves like rigid-hulled ships. The rubber craft rolled over each swell and plunged into the wave's trough, and it was easy to lose sight of each other. The Guards had to hold on tightly to keep from being thrown out. Soaked by the rain and the spray, they shivered though the air was not cold.

  The leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard commando unit, Major Ali Khurbasi, leaned over the bow of the first Zodiac and scanned the area through a pair of American night vision goggles. The drift of the current made a compass bearing useless. Ali was looking for an infrared light signal set up by a reconnaissance team that had swum ashore three nights earlier. The team had been ordered to turn the light on at the arranged launch time and leave it on for six hours in case the main force was delayed.

  Ali's stomach was in a knot. So many things could go wrong, and there was no support if they ran into trouble. If the reconnaissance team had been discovered, all surprise would be lost. Worse, if the men had been captured alive and forced to talk, the signal would be the lure for an ambush. But the mission was to attack and be gone before daylight, so the Guards needed an advance reconnaissance of the target and guides to the objective. The recon also reduced the risk of landing in the wrong spot. That would be a disaster. Anything could happen with over fifty men moving around in the darkness, trying to navigate with no point of reference.

  The green artificial light of the goggles combined with the lurching of the Zodiac to nauseate Ali, but he did not take his eyes from the eyepiece. The overcast and rain reduced the amount of ambient light for the scope to magnify. Ali swore silently. Where was the light? He thought he had seen it through the larger scope in the missile boat—he would not have launched otherwise.

  The Zodiac crested a wave, and Ali had to grab onto the boat to keep from falling out. When he brought the scope back to his eyes, he saw the bright blob of the infrared light off to the left. He could not believe he had missed it before. Holding the scope in his right hand, he extended his left arm. The coxswain saw the signal and turned the Zodiac to the left. Each of the other boats, following the blue lights ahead, turned with it.

  Three hundred meters from the beach, Ali gave another signal. In succession, the other Zodiacs moved up even with the lead boat so all could land together, on line, with all their firepower to the front in case of trouble.

  The surf in the Gulf was not strong. But even so, the Zodiacs had to approach the shore at an angle, sliding across the break of the waves. If they landed directly over the break, they risked flipping end over end as the bow dropped over a wave and the stern lifted.

  As the bows scraped the sand, the Guards leaped out and threw themselves to the ground, weapons ready. Ali and another Guard ran toward the dunes. They were halted by the loud snap of a Kalashnikov safety coming off. "Blue!" came a challenge from ahead.

  "Fire!" Ali hissed back. Recognition signals had to be easy to remember but make no sense, so the enemy could not easily guess the countersign.

  "Welcome," whispered Lt. Karim Radji, the recon team leader, from behind a clump of sea grass.

  Ali turned to the Guard beside him. "Go bring them up," he murmured.

  Straining under the weight of the Zodiac, outboard, and equipment, the Guards carried their burden up
to a depression between two sand dunes. Ali ordered six of the men to take up a hasty defensive position atop the dunes on either side. The other two removed the equipment from the Zodiac and stacked it in the sand. They draped a camouflage net over the boat.

  The other crews followed. Ali took Karim off to one side. The lieutenant was a tall, athletic young man of twenty-three, with the build of a soccer player. When not heavily armed and covered with camouflage paint, as he was now, Radji had a boyish face that gave him a look of deceptive innocence. Ali considered Karim the best close-in reconnaissance specialist he had ever known.

  Ali took a plastic-laminated map from his pocket. "Tell me what you have," he whispered.

  They took out flashlights and spread the map on the sand. Karim pulled a poncho over them so the light would not be seen. The rain pattered down on it as they talked.

  "I am glad you are here," Karim said, smiling. "We were becoming tired of living in holes. I have sand in my ears."

  Ali grimaced. It was unnatural to make jokes in such a situation, but Karim was always doing it. The boy was wary as a fox, but always seemed utterly casual. Ali envied it. "Any problems?" he asked.

  "It was good we had more than a day to do the reconnaissance," Karim said. "We landed in the wrong spot."

  "I thought that might happen. There are few landmarks on the shore to navigate by. Was it much trouble?"

  "It took some time to discover exactly where we were," Karim admitted. "We swam ashore six kilometers down the beach. Once we sorted that out, no problems." He pointed to the map. They had to look closely to see the details in the blue light. "I brought Abdul here with me, and the other four are at an observation point near the objective. We checked the route, and found good spots for the mortars and machineguns."

  "Do we need to make any changes to the plan?" Ali asked. "Is there anything new or different?"

  Karim flipped through his notebook to a sketch diagram of their objective, a complex of squat concrete buildings situated on a low hill. The pump house was in the very center, surrounded by barracks, workshops, a mess and recreation building, and a generator building. The pipeline ran up the low hill directly into the pump house, continuing on its way out the other side. A road led to the village, which was a kilometer away. Another ran out the opposite side, to the coastal highway.

  As an acknowledgment of the station's importance, a high chain link fence topped with barbed wire circled the compound. Besides keeping out people and animals, the fence would prematurely detonate any rocket-propelled grenades fired from outside. Inside the fence was a fifteen-meter belt of antipersonnel mines, then a barbed wire apron fence and a four-foot-high earthen bank. A permanent garrison of twenty-five soldiers guarded the complex, mostly Baluch mercenaries hired in Pakistan. The defenses were more than enough to frighten off the odd saboteur, terrorist gang, or bandit.

  Karim traced the diagram with his finger. "We checked the entire perimeter. No problems."

  "Good," said Ali. "Did you see ground radar or come across any sensors?" It was his great concern. If those detection devices were present, the force would have to move slowly and with the greatest care.

  "No," said Karim. "We saw nothing, and we went very close to the perimeter to check. They are quite lax. The fence and mines make them feel invulnerable."

  "Anything else?"

  "They allowed the brush outside the fence to grow long. So lazy. We can get very close without being discovered."

  "God is generous," Ali said. "But we are wasting time. Be ready to move as soon as I brief everyone." They clicked off their flashlights and emerged from under the poncho. Ali was glad to see that his senior enlisted man, Master Sergeant Musa Sa'ed, had supervised the unwrapping and distribution of the equipment packs. The Guards were deployed in a perimeter for security, and his two officers, the sergeant in charge of the mortar team, and the master sergeant were next to the boats, awaiting any new orders. Ali quickly briefed them on the route they would take. He gave them ten minutes to check their men.

  Sitting with his back against the soft hull of a Zodiac, Ali pulled a tube of camouflage cream from his pocket and touched up the black camouflage on his face and hands. He was pleased with two decisions he had already made. Waiting for the storm had greatly increased their chances of landing undetected. And landing before midnight gave time to move slowly enough and ensure the surprise they needed. One man had been lost already, but better to lose an idiot out to sea than have him destroy the mission through some carelessness.

  Ali forced himself to remain sitting. The temptation to pace, to do something, was unbearable. But snowing anxiety would make the men nervous. The tension before the attack was the worst part. There were too many things to think about.

  Exactly ten minutes later the Guards soundlessly came down from the dunes and lined up in single-file march formation. Ali felt a surge of pride as he walked down the file and checked his men. They had touched up their camouflage paint where it had been smeared by the rain. All their equipment was secured for silent movement. There was no whispering or confusion as they moved into position. The group was understrength, but better to have fifty men you could count on than a hundred you were unsure of. The six coxswains would stay and guard the boats.

  He came to little Parviz and squeezed the boy's arm. Only seventeen, Parviz looked thirteen. He was less than five and a half feet tall and achingly thin. They did not usually accept recruits that young, but at the depot Parviz, trembling with nervousness and in a high voice, informed Ali that he wanted to be a Guard. The other troops had collapsed with laughter, but Ali, unsmiling, told the boy he would be given a chance to prove himself. When accepted into the unit, the lonely boy far from home dogged the heels of his commander in gratitude. Since his gratitude was genuine and not obsequious, Ali tolerated it. Despite his size, Parviz could carry a heavy load without tiring, so Ali made him a radio operator. This would be his first action. "How do you feel?" Ali asked.

  "Fine, Sir," the boy whispered, very nervous.

  "Have no worry, you will do well," Ali said. "Just stay close to me." Parviz nodded, and Ali moved down the column.

  He reached the end of the file and came upon the master sergeant's unmistakable silhouette: short but with the build of a heavyweight wrestler—the same rough shape as a block of granite. They had been together for years, and Ali could not imagine soldiering without him. The master sergeant was highly experienced and completely imperturbable, "Make sure none of these blind men gets lost," Ali whispered.

  "They will not," Musa assured him in a low voice. He added in a whisper, "Everything is going well."

  Ali nudged the master sergeant with his elbow and walked up to take his place at the front of the column, behind Karim and Abdul, the guides. He gave Karim the order to move out.

  The column moved quickly but deliberately, so each man could be sure of his footing and step quietly. The rain masked the sounds of their movement.

  The Guards wore stolen UAE Union Defense Force desert camouflage. They were shod in rubber-soled canvas boots, which dried quickly when soaked. Strips of luminous tape were sewn to the backs of their billed caps; the men could stay in formation in total darkness and uneven terrain by following the glowing tapes. They carried nothing that could identify them as Iranian.

  Ali believed in light loads, and the men carried a minimum of personal gear: a chest pouch with six thirty-round magazines for the Kalashnikov AKM assault rifles; six grenades; a water bottle; and a knife. All but the two Guards carrying Soviet PKM machineguns were armed with Kalashnikovs. Every man carried a backpack with either demolition gear or ammunition for the mortars, machineguns, or rocket launcher. No man carried more than forty pounds. They had to travel over eight kilometers through rough terrain, and Ali knew all the firepower in the world would be useless if the men were too tired to fight.

  From the dunes they passed through a belt of palms, then rocky ground covered with sparse trees and scrub. The available cover was scarc
e, so the overcast and rain were a blessing. The guides led them around the sides of hills and through draws to keep the column as concealed as possible. Each time they stopped, the master sergeant passed a head count from the rear to the front, letting Ali know everyone was still with him.

  Karim halted the column at the base of a hill. "We are at the release point," he whispered to Ali.

  Ali's calves ached from the rocky hills, and the insides of his thighs were chafed raw from wet trousers. This was where the various elements of the attack force would break up. "I want to take a look," he replied.

  The two men crawled to the top of the hill. Ali had memorized the terrain from maps and photographs. As he saw it through the starlight scope, the plan unfolded in his mind. The hill they were on was almost broadside to the compound; he could see the lights and the pipeline. The road from the complex to the highway was about three hundred meters off to their left. The village was farther out to the right.

  It was still raining steadily. "What do you want to do?" Karim whispered.

  "Take the support teams and put them in position. We will wait until you come back."

  The six-man mortar team collected the backpacks filled with mortar bombs from others in the column and trudged off into the darkness with Karim. The five-man machine-gun team, reduced from six by the accident at sea, picked up their two Soviet PKM general-purpose machineguns and started up the hill. They also carried an RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher to deal with any armored vehicles. It took two trips to get all the packs filled with rockets and belted machine-gun ammunition to the top. The team members positioned their weapons to cover both the complex and the nearby road. They set out Claymore antipersonnel mines to cover the road, their flanks, and rear. The lieutenant in charge took his West German walkie-talkie out of its protective plastic bag.

  Karim dropped off the mortar team in a small piece of flat ground on the side of the hill. They quickly assembled the two Chinese lightweight 60mm mortars and prepared a few rounds of ammunition in case of emergency. The sergeant commanding the team crawled to the higher ground to get a compass bearing to the strongpoint and check the distance. Upon his return he gave the crews their firing data and turned on his radio.