Force of Eagles

by Richard Herman

  “I count six APCs in the lead,” Mustapha Sindi said.

  “Figure fourteen troops inside each one,” Carroll said. He was worried about the attack he had planned and organized for the Kurds—suspicion that the Kurds might blame him for a defeat would not go away. “That’s a good armored car, you’ve got to be careful around them.” Mustapha only shrugged. Like all Kurds, the Pesh Merga tended to forget heavy odds against them in battle.

  The two men counted twenty-four EL-157 trucks, each packed with troops. “About twenty to twenty-five to a truck,” Mustapha observed. “Good trucks, we could use some of them.” Two more BTR-60s passed, one a command vehicle. Another twelve trucks passed, heavily loaded with supplies. Four BTR-60s brought up the rear.

  “They separate their supplies and personnel,” Carroll said. “We need to change our tactics. It’s not enough, the Iraqis have got to commit more troops before we attack.” He dug a small Israeli-made field radio out of a sack of vegetables and started to transmit. Mustapha pounded on the roof of the cab and told the driver to go on into Irbil.

  *

  Ghalib al-Otaybi sat in the commander’s seat of the command BTR-60 monitoring the radios, the noise of the two GAZ-49B engines muffled by his headset. The freshly promoted muqaddam, Iraqi equivalent of lieutenant colonel, was leading his first operation as a newly appointed battalion commander. Both rank and command came from family connections and friends who had insured his combat experience in the Iran-Iraq war had been limited to the safety of a rear-echelon headquarters.

  Now he noted the traffic on the road heading for the marketplace in Irbil, if anything lighter than normal, and by the time his convoy entered the first low range of hills the traffic had all but disappeared. The next seven miles leading to a small village nestled at the base of a steep escarpment were covered on time, and Otaybi saw nothing that indicated the Kurds were active in the region. Their intelligence was wrong and the prisoner had lied. He would settle up that when they returned. He keyed the radio, ordering the convoy to close up when the lead BTR reported the village in sight.

  Ahead of him, unseen, over three hundred Kurds were running to new positions after receiving Carroll’s latest radio message.

  Otaybi’s rear guard had cleared the village when the convoy came under attack. “Small arms fire,” the lead gunner reported, closing his hatch and crawling into the turret. A hail of 7.62mm bullets rained down on the aluminum skin of the BTR ricocheting harmlessly into the air. The gunner swept the hillside with a burst of heavy machine gun fire as the driver accelerated down the road. Three BTRs followed him while the last two halted, stopping the unarmored trucks behind them, ready to act as a shield. Men poured out of the trucks, searching for cover.

  The last armored car was less than a hundred yards beyond the village when a turbaned boy of sixteen popped up from behind a rock with a dark green tube—a U.S.-made, Israeli-supplied light antitank weapon. The small rocket with a shaped charged warhead streaked toward the BTR less than forty yards away. The Iraqis never saw the boy or the shot that penetrated the aluminum armor and gunner. Now the boy ran for cover while two more LAWs riddled the BTR. The last hit blew askew the two wheels that steered in tandem on the left side, and the momentum of the BTR slued it to the left, blocking the road…

  From the safety of his armored car in the middle of the convoy, Otaybi ordered his dismounted troops to sweep the area to the rear and the village, to shoot any Kurd on sight, armed or unarmed, woman or child.

  The soldiers sweeping the village reported no activity or Kurds, and the village was known to be friendly. A hit-and-run attack, nothing to stop him, the battalion commander decided. Otaybi had convinced himself that the Kurds were not as brave, or as suicidal, as the Afghanis and too weak and disorganized to put up any resistance in force. He radioed for two of the BTRs surging ahead to return to the convoy and for the other two to scout the road. Most of the men clambered back into the trucks while a detail zippered the dead BTR gunner into a body bag and the three wounded men were treated and taken to the village. None was seriously hurt, and Otaybi radioed the division headquarters in Irbil to send an ambulance. A BTR pushed its destroyed mate to the side of the road and the convoy resumed its chase…

  The Kurds who had attacked the rear of the convoy could still see the dust of the disappearing trucks when they approached the destroyed BTR and started packing it with high explosive charges. The smell of blood was still fresh inside the armored car. Only when they were finished did they send a message to Carroll that the road could be sealed off…

  The two BTRs scouting ahead reached a bridge twelve miles down the road thirty-three minutes later, radioed their position and were told to secure the bridge and wait for the convoy. The lead armored car did not cross the bridge but waded the river and climbed the far bank to reach the other end. The three Kurdish patrols watching the bridge from different vantage points each sent a runner to the rear.

  When the convoy reached the bridge Otaybi sent a demolition team to inspect it. They reported finding two satchel charges wired to the girders of the central span, noted the fuses were wired to a small transmitter, and withdrew. Otaybi sent them right back to disarm the charges. Two hours later the team exploded the satchels in the river gorge a half mile downstream, and Otaybi felt the area secure enough to crawl out of his BTR as he sent his trucks across the bridge.

  The high-pitched shrill of incoming mortars shattered his confidence. Explosions echoed down the river gorge, adding to the confusion and making it impossible for Otaybi’s commands to be heard. He leaped into the BTR and slammed the hatch shut, locking his driver out, as the bridge disappeared in a geyser of smoke and sounds. The Iraqi demolition team had missed the two-hundred-pound charge the Kurds had buried at the base of the far pylon. The attack ended as quickly as it had started, and Otaybi could only stare at the ruins of the bridge, with most of his troops on the far side of the six lead BTRs.

  He grabbed the radio’s mike and ordered his men and BTRs to ford the river and reform on his side, abandoning the trucks. A BTR leading the return nosed over the embankment and presented the tail of its boat-shaped hull to the sky. An 84mm Carl Gustav antitank missile streaked from the hillside and punched a hole in the engine compartment. Otaybi saw a tail of flame erupt from the disabled BTR before he heard the muffled explosion and saw the two hatches flop open and men spill out. A fresh hailstorm of small-arms fire and mortar rounds swept over his Iraqi troops, driving them for cover. The battalion commander cursed in frustration when he saw the two-man team that had fired the Carl Gustav scamper over the top of the ridge to safety.

  Suddenly, it was quiet again. Then a series of explosions from the rear of the convoy resonated through the river valley and the leading shock wave rocked the command BTR. Panicked, Otaybi yelled into the mike, trying to reestablish contact with his rear guard. Nothing. He cracked his forward hatch and ordered the driver to send a squad to check on the rear of the convoy. No answer. Fear was his only companion as he jabbed at the radio, sending a plea for help to Irbil.

  Zakia Sindi was hidden inside a house next to the army compound in Irbil, scanning Iraqi tactical frequencies. The sweep on her monitoring equipment locked on to Otaybi’s channel and she relayed his distress call to Carroll. “Now we have to see how they react here,” he told her. “Unless they send a relief force the attack is off and we can withdraw.” But he wished he could know something for sure. Alone and guessing…

  *

  Nellis AFB, Nevada

  The soft, rhythmic buzz of the plotter filled the corner of the room. Dewa and Bryant moved aside, letting Stansell watch the computer-generated map printout. “Where did you get that program?” Stansell asked.

  “Courtesy of the Defense Mapping Agency,” Bryant told him, “and a little wheelin’ dealin’ by Mizz Rahimi here.”

  Stansell watched them plot a route from Turkey into Iran that twisted and turned through the rugged Zagros mountains. “The radar site at Marag
heh is our biggest problem,” Bryant said. “Got to work around it.” Then he turned his attention to a 1:250,000 scale map of Nevada, finding equivalent routes to train on. Everything Stansell had seen indicated the C-130 crews could hack the mission and what Bryant was laying out was within their abilities if the weather cooperated.

  Jack Locke stuck his head in the door. “Sir, need to talk to you.”

  Stansell motioned him in.

  “I can’t get the F-15 drivers to stick to the scenario. They’re more interested in going head-to-head with each other than escorting C-130s.”

  “Fangs starting to hang out?”

  “Yeah. They know the LOCAP Is supposed to stick with the C-130s until the bad guys get a visual. I’ve briefed the HICAP flight that they can only use vectors from Blackjack, the Range Control Center—just like the Iranian defense net—to find the intruders. But they seem to forget that and use everything they’ve got to find each other. Snake left the C-130s uncovered yesterday when the HICAP was still beyond visual range. Not good.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Other than telling them what we’re really doing here, Colonel? No.”

  “Can’t do that. All we need is some idle chatter at the bar. Keep at ’em and I’ll work on it—”

  They were interrupted by Bryant. “Message from Texas Lake, sir. Seems there was a fight between a couple of Rangers and C-130 loadmasters. Colonel Gregory would appreciate your presence.”

  *

  Texas Lake, Nevada

  Kamigami was waiting with a jeep and driver for Stansell when the helicopter landed at Texas Lake. He waited until Stansell was in the passenger’s seat, then vaulted into the back seat with an ease that belied his bulk, which tilted the jeep down on his side as the driver headed for the battalion’s headquarters tent.

  Four men were standing at attention against the back wall when Stansell entered. A livid Duck Mallard was with Ham Gregory. Gregory told Stansell about the fight between two Romeo Team Rangers and the two C-130 loadmasters in front of the mess tent. “If you want, I’ll build a gallows right now,” Gregory said.

  A soft voice came from behind them. “If you will, sir, let me handle it.” It was Victor Kamigami.

  “You’ve got it, Sergeant Major,” Gregory said.

  Kamigami pointed to the entrance. “Baulck, Wade. Out.” The two Rangers double-timed outside.

  Mallard turned to the two loadmasters. “What in the hell were you thinking of?”

  “Sir, one of those pukes said that I had to be a certifiable cock-sucker to fly with a crew of two-bit whores and—”

  “Petrovich, I don’t give a damn what they said. I’ve a mind to turn you two over to the CSM here…”

  “I can solve this problem, sir,” Kamigami reminded him.

  “You’ve got ’em.”

  Again, Kamigami pointed to outside. “Wait,” was all he said. The two men repeated the performance of the Rangers.

  “I think they’d rather of had the gallows,” Stansell said. “How deep does this go?”

  “This is the second flare-up we’ve had,” Mallard said. “Too much tension, no sense of team effort.”

  “Now, how in the hell do we cure all that?” Stansell asked. Without blowing security? he silently added.

  “Football,” Kamigami said, leaving the tent. “Survivors winners.”

  *

  Irbil, Iraq

  The commander of the motor-rifle division slammed the phone down. What did those idiots in Baghdad expect? He had a division in name only and the forces in garrison at Irbil amounted to little more than a half-strength regiment. They withdraw battalion after battalion to reinforce the border with Iran, and now they expect him to respond like a Soviet motor-rifle division, the model the Iraqis had patterned their army after. If it had been anyone other than that fool Otaybi, the politicos, the asses that Hussein and the ruling council chose to make generals, would have ignored the ambush and let the trapped battalion fight its way out. Now he had to mount a major rescue effort. And all because of the precious Otaybi family.

  Still, it wasn’t worth his life to let Ghalib al-Otaybi be captured by the Kurds.

  *

  Mustapha Sindi pointed at the shadow moving along the outer wall of the compound that housed the divisional headquarters in Irbil. The last of the relief column had left twenty minutes earlier and the evening twilight was rapidly fading into darkness. The audacity of the Kurds had worried Bill Carroll at first, they seemed totally unconcerned with the risks they were taking and moved casually into place right under the Iraqi guards. He relaxed when he saw how easily they disappeared into the deepening shadows, and his fingers relaxed their stranglehold on the two-foot-length of pipe he was carrying.

  The shadowy image moved on. “They’re all in place,” Mustapha Sindi told Carroll, fingering the transmitter that would trigger the series of C4 plastic high-explosive charges placed around the wall. If they all worked, numerous sections of the wall would be breached at the same time. Now they had to wait…

  *

  Twenty-three miles to the northeast, the last of the Iraqi relief column was through the small village and passing the destroyed BTR. The Kurd left behind in the village to detonate the explosives timed it well. He hit the switch on his remote actuator and the booby-trapped BTR erupted, taking out the Iraqis in the rear of the relief column…

  The dull boom echoed across the valley, reaching Irbil. “It begins,” Sindi said. The light banter typical of the young Kurd was gone. Now he was a serious guerrilla.

  They heard Zakia’s voice in the next room talking on the radio. She came to the doorway. “They never suspected the armored car, didn’t even check it,” she reported. “Two trucks and the last armored car were destroyed, the road is cratered. The relief column is trapped on the other side of the village.”

  “Tell our man to get the hell out of there,” Carroll said. He was expecting the Iraqi soldiers to sweep through the village and kill many of the inhabitants—most of them loyal Iraqis. “Have them hit the battalion at the bridge one more time. I want that Iraqi yelling for help when we work the headquarters over. Then everyone withdraws together.” Zakia went back to the radio to relay his instructions. “Mustapha—now.”

  Sindi keyed the transmitter, and a series of explosions marched around the walls of the headquarters, sending smoke and debris into the air. Without waiting, Carroll and Sindi charged into the smoke along with ninety other Kurds. Sindi tripped over rubble in the smoke and went sprawling—he was not fully recovered-from the beating by the Iraqi soldiers but had insisted on going on the raid. Carroll picked him up by the back of his shirt and they covered together the few short steps to the wall. The C4 charge had knocked an eight-foot gap in the wall, and they ran through followed by four others.

  Inside the compound they sprinted for the low building on their left, taking sporadic gunfire from the three-story building directly in front of them. The four Kurds following them headed for that building while Carroll and Sindi crossed the open ground leading to the low building. The bark of a machine gun from the rear of the compound was their first warning that the defenders were reacting and in force.

  A sharp explosion ended that threat.

  Carroll plastered himself to the building’s wall next to a window. At a nod from Sindi he jammed one end of the pipe he was carrying through the glass and raked it around the inner edges of the window frame, clearing away the glass. Sindi shoved the muzzle of his Uzi through the opening and swept the room with a short burst. A guard in the hall had heard the sound of the breaking glass and had come into the room, meeting Sindi’s gunfire. Sindi leaped through the window. Carroll right behind him stepped over the guard’s body, following Sindi into the cell block.

  A long row of heavy steel doors stretched down the hall—all closed and locked. Carroll searched the dead guard’s pockets for a key. Nothing. Sindi was running down the hall, yelling at the door of each cell, trying to find out which cells were occupied
by Kurds. They only had ribbon charges to blow open two doors. But they wanted to unlock them if possible—the concussion would probably break the eardrums of the prisoner inside.

  Carroll headed for the guard room. So far the old man’s diagram of the cell block had been accurate, and according to it two guards should be on duty. One was still unaccounted for. Carroll kicked the door open and crouched. Nothing. He moved through and saw a dim figure huddled in a corner. He fired a short burst, fingered the light switch by the door…and saw what he had done. A young boy in uniform, maybe sixteen years old, lay dead on the floor. A large key ring with one key was on the floor beside him. Carroll shook his head, scooped it up and ran into the hall, trying not to think about teenagers who hid in corners frightened and confused…

  Sindi was attaching a ribbon charge to a cell’s door when Carroll jammed the key into the lock and twisted. Inside was Rashid Shaban, unable to walk, the soles of his feet burned with an electric engraving tool. Carroll picked him up in a fireman’s carry and started up the hall while Sindi unlocked the cells. Shaban was the only Kurd being held, but Carroll had told Sindi to let as many prisoners as possible out, adding to the confusion bound to follow the attack.

  Outside, the fighting had stopped and only the Kurds whom Carroll had detailed to hide explosive charges with delayed-action fuses were still in the compound. They were nine minutes into the attack and running out of time. Two men grabbed Shaban and carried him to the same dilapidated truck that had carried them into town. But instead of produce the truck was now overflowing with men and weapons. Carroll motioned to Zakia, raising his right hand to his lips. She pulled a police whistle out of a pocket and blew one long blast followed by two short toots. She paused and repeated the signal. Men came running out of the compound, some disappearing into the darkness, others piling into waiting cars and trucks. All had captured weapons and ammo cases.