Force of Eagles

by Richard Herman

  Chapter 34: D Minus 1

  Maragheh, Iran

  The Iranian radar operator settled into the still-warm chair as he relieved the sergeant going off duty. “Are the Americans doing anything different?” he asked. The reply was a muffled grunt as the sergeant hurried out the door of the radar shack to catch the truck before it left for the run down the mountain to the comfort of his quarters in the town of Maragheh.

  The operator resigned himself to his twelve-hour shift and searched through the drawers for the detailed checklist the Americans had supplied with the radar site. The only one that still followed it, he finally found the thick notebook buried in a stack of newspapers in a corner of the room and thumbed through it until he found the changeover checklist. Carefully he went through each step, checking them off with a grease pencil. He adjusted the receiver-gain, surprised to find it turned to its lowest setting. “How long has it been that way?” he mumbled to himself. When he checked the interrogation circuits he gasped as he counted twelve targets orbiting close to the border. A quick double-check confirmed they were still in Turkey but all were in the buffer zone NATO had established in Turkey next to the Iranian border.

  He scanned the log for the previous shift and saw only two entries—the sign-on and sign-off of the departed sergeant. He continued to run the checklist until he reached the communications check section, keyed his mike and called the control center of Maragheh. After several attempts a voice answered his call. “Sir, communications check. Also, I have an unusual number of targets in the tri-border region.”

  “You have a very short memory,” the-officer told him, “that is the joint Turkish-American air defense exercise. Perhaps you recall I directed you to report only unusual activity? Only call me with important observations. Or will it take a forty-eight-hour tour-of-duty on the mountain to teach you to follow orders?”

  “Sorry to disturb you, sir.”

  The officer broke the connection, and the operator sighed in relief.

  *

  Incirlik Air Base, Turkey

  Chief Pullman heaved his bulk out of the red canvas parachute seat stretched along the side of the C-141 and peered out one of the small round windows above the seat rail. “Can’t see much,” he yelled at Kamigami, who was sitting next to him. The loadmaster keyed his mike, acknowledged a call from the pilot and walked back to the two men, telling them to strap in for the approach and landing at Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey. “Ever been to Turkey?” he asked Kamigami. The Army sergeant shook his head. “Interesting place,” Pullman told him.

  The passenger-services sergeant meeting the big cargo plane was surprised to learn that it was not the “Turkey Trot,” the normal shuttle C-141 that landed every Tuesday. “Chief,” he explained, “you haven’t got an in-country clearance to be here. That’s a biggy, I can’t let you off the airplane.” Pullman took him aside, spoke a few quiet words. The sergeant jumped into his pickup and sped away.

  “We should have transportation and an officer out here in a few minutes,” Pullman told Kamigami. While they waited Pullman put the cargo handlers to work and off-loaded the C-141 as he checked off the cargo strapped to six pallets. As predicted a harried-looking lieutenant colonel appeared and demanded to see their orders. Pullman reached into his briefcase and handed him the deployment order from the Secretary of Defense. He pointed out that Incirlik was one of the addresses on the message.

  “I’ve never heard of OPORD WARLORD—”

  “And you won’t, sir, unless you’ve got one hell of a need to know. Your wing commander and his plans officer should know about it. I’d suggest you talk to them. Meantime I need your gym and a hangar for a few days. A little transportation would be appreciated. All in accordance with OPORD WARLORD, of course.” The L.C. reread the message, noted the date/time group and drove away, determined to find out why the men were on his base. Two pickup trucks heading for the cargo plane passed the officer before he had driven thirty yards.

  “Those are for us,” Pullman told Kamigami.

  “I didn’t know the OPORD said we got trucks,” Kamigami said.

  “It doesn’t. I don’t know about you but I’m not about to walk. Hell, we’ll be long gone before the motor pool figures it out. Let the officers walk.” Kamigami threw his gear into the back of one truck and took the keys from the driver. “If you’ll get this squared away in a hangar”—Pullman swept the six pallets with a gesture—“I’ll check with munitions. We’ll be ready to bed ’em down when the birds arrive.”

  Six hours later a nervous Pullman paced the ramp in front of the hangar they had been given to use, waiting for the first C-130 to taxi in. Stansell glared at the big sergeant when he climbed down the crew-entry steps. “Chief, I told you to stay—”

  Pullman threw him a hasty salute. “Big problems, sir. No GBU-12s on base. All that got shipped were GBU-15s, two-thousand pounders.” The chief knew how to switch the colonel’s attention away from his insubordination.

  Stansell clamped a tight control on his anger. “Somebody screwed up big time. Let’s find General Mado and try to sort this out. What else?”

  “Under control, sir. We’re using the gym to billet most of the Rangers, got the officers in the VOQ, and the mess hall will set up a chow line in the hangar there. We can keep the troops under cover inside.”

  They found the general at the back of the C-130 talking to Incirlik’s wing commander. “General,” Stansell began, “we’ve got a problem. No GBU-12s…only GBU-15s were shipped—”

  “Someone really screwed up.” Mado turned to the wing commander. “We need an emergency shipment of twelve GBU-12s in here ASAP—twelve hours max.”

  “I can’t make that happen, General. The Turks are real touchy about munitions coming in-country, and an emergency shipment like that is too public, too easily monitored—”

  “Colonel, we didn’t come here to be grounded by some snafu and bullshit regs. Now make it happen and quick.”

  “Sir,” the wing commander persisted, “I know what you’re up against but I can’t do it that quick without getting us kicked out of Turkey.”

  Mado glared at him. Angry, yes, but also, it came as something of a shock to him, that he felt a degree of relief. And then he realized why. He wanted the POWs rescued, would do whatever he could to make it happen. Sure, of course…But he was, after all, an expert in special operations, and in his firm opinion he had a lot more confidence in Delta Force than in Stansell’s less organized, pick-up Task Force Alpha. Besides, there was Leachmeyer breathing down his back. He shunted aside such crass considerations as where his own career was best-served in this Delta-Alpha tug of war…Well, whatever, he wasn’t going to roll over and play dead because the wrong bombs had been shipped. “Let’s go with the GBU-15s—”

  “No way,” Pullman cut in. “Too much collateral damage. We’d nail at least some of the POWs when we blow the walls if we use those bigger bombs.”

  “Are you really sure, Chief?” Mado asked.

  “I built the damn walls just like the Iranians did. I saw what five-hundred pounders did. I’m sure, General.”

  “I’ll get a message off to the command center in the Pentagon and let them sort it out,” Mado said as he turned and walked toward a waiting car, cutting off any further discussion.

  “No way, General,” Stansell growled. “Chief, you’re about to earn your pay this month. Let’s talk to Doucette and find out where we can find GBU-12s in Europe. You’re going to do some unauthorized requisitioning.”

  “Now, how in the hell am I going to do that?”

  “Let’s find Doucette first.” They walked into the hangar where most of the aircrews were gathering and found Doucette and Contreraz talking to a maintenance sergeant about their jet. After hearing Stansell, Doucette told them that his unit at RAF Lakenheath had GBU-12s in their ammo dump but that he doubted the 48th’s DO, Colonel Billy Joe Barker, would release them since OPORD WARLORD only required the 48th to provide F-111s and aircrews. It w
ould take a special, coordinated authorization from higher headquarters to budge Barker since he had dealt with the Turks before, and that would take days to arrange.

  “Would he even know if the bombs were sent to RAF Stonewood for a practice exercise, like an emergency munitions buildup?” Pullman asked. Doucette conceded that sounded like normal maintenance training that Barker wouldn’t be too concerned with. Pullman found a telephone and placed a long distance phone call to a friend at Headquarters United States Air Force Europe in Germany who owed him a favor. Pullman collected favors like a gambler took in markers. “The GBU-12s will be built up and waiting for us at Stonewood. Okay, Colonel,” Pullman said, “now how in hell do we get them here?” You just don’t walk in and shanghai twelve GBUs. Munitions are tightly controlled—”

  “Why don’t I go get ’em?” Doucette asked.

  “You’ve just ferried your jet in from Nellis,” Stansell said. “You’re almost out of crew duty, you should go into crew rest—”

  “The only people here who know that are you and me, Colonel. Von Drexler hasn’t landed yet. Hell, Colonel, flyin’ straight and level is no big deal. I’m fine and slept most of the way over here while Ramon flew the jet. Ramon”—he turned to his WSO—“file a flight plan and let’s go a’fliegening.” Contreraz ran for a pickup truck.

  “What?” Pullman said. It was moving too fast even for him.

  “A’flyin’,” Doucette translated…it’s supposed to be what the Air Force is all about. Another thought occurred: “Chief, we can one-hop it without refueling going to Stonewood but we’re going to need to hit a tanker coming back if we’re hauling bombs. Can you arrange a KC-135 for us?” Pullman nodded, pleased to still have something to do, and headed for the telephone to arrange it, muttering about freewheeling jet jockeys. But he was impressed.

  “I’ll get a message off to Cunningham and have the GBUs released to you by the time you get to Stonewood,” Stansell said. “Just get them here ASAP.” As he watched Doucette walk out to his F-111 he decided he wasn’t going to tell Mado about his midnight requisitioning of GBU-12s until they arrived at Incirlik. He found a pickup truck and headed for the communications shack to send out his own message to Cunningham. We’re still players, General, he said to himself.

  *

  Maragheh, Iran

  A power surge activated the protective circuits of the AN/FPS-8 radar, and the slowly rotating sweep disappeared from the radar scope as the set shut off. The operator caught it immediately and grabbed the checklist, turning to the appropriate page. “Let it cool down first,” the maintenance technician grumbled, not caring if the set was working or not. The operator ignored him and worked his way through the checklist, noting all the voltages. The radar was back on line in three minutes.

  “Now what are the Americans up to?” the operator sighed as he played the receiver-gain and antenna-tilt for the best return. He could count four skin-paints—returns off a target—that did not correlate with an IFF squawk. When they disappeared off his scope he dropped the antenna tilt and recaptured the returns as they started a westbound penetration run into Turkey at a lower altitude than before. He almost stomped on the pedal under his right foot to call his superior to in the control center but thought better of it. Twelve minutes later he picked up four eastbound skin-paints at low altitude inside Turkey heading straight for Iran. Again, there was no IFF squawk from the fast-moving returns. The operator watched as the returns disappeared from his scope, a good indication the aircraft were descending lower. Still, he only monitored the scope, though he was now worried about a border penetration.

  Finally, he could no longer endure the waiting and called his control center to explain the developing situation. After acknowledging the call, there was silence from his superior, a sure sign that the officer did not want to hear about it. Then the four returns materialized on the scope as the aircraft turned on their IFFs and climbed to altitude, still inside Turkey. Reluctantly, he reported the latest developments. “You are deaf,” the officer finally said, “and cannot learn. Forty-eight hours on duty should teach you something. You will be replaced Thursday at noon.” He broke the connection.

  The operator swore at his own rashness in calling the control center, turned the receiver-gain to a lower setting, raised the antenna tilt to sweep the far horizon, and walked to a bunk in the far corner to find some warmth and sleep. He glanced at his watch and calculated he had another forty-two hours before he would be relieved.

  Chapter 35: D-Day

  The Pentagon

  Colonel Richard Stevens glanced at one of the master clocks above the main situation board in the command center—0012—twelve minutes after midnight local time. He had been on duty since six o’clock the previous morning and was dog-tired. He tried to shrug off his fatigue and finish setting up the Military Command Center for the coming operation. Normally the Joint Special Operations Agency would have handled the drill since JSOA commanded all special operations. But Cunningham had asked him to oversee it and try to make sure nothing fell through the cracks.

  Stevens had to admit that General Mado seemed to have thought of everything. The thick briefing books that detailed Operation WARLORD were ready, one for each position in the command center. Every relevant fact, including the names of the raiders, was listed in the books. Mado added a question-and-answer section to the back of each book, trying to anticipate questions the President or another heavy might ask. Mado had even developed the checklist he was using for setting up the command center.

  It was going to be a long day.

  “When was the master clock last set?” Stevens asked the sergeant trailing around after him.

  “I hacked it with WWV at Fort Collins at twenty hundred hours last night. It was right on, Colonel. Keeps damn good time. Almost as accurate as the cesium dock WWV uses.”

  “What about the mission clock?” Stevens pointed at the digital clock underneath the master clock labeled “H-hour Plus.”

  “I ran it for an hour when I checked the master. Perfect.”

  A major interrupted them and handed Stevens a folder. “Two messages from Task Force Alpha,” he said.

  Stevens signed for the messages and sat down to read them while the sergeant went off to get some coffee. “God,” Stevens muttered, “what the hell is going on?” The first message was from Mado explaining that the wrong munitions had been shipped to Incirlik and that an emergency shipment of the GBU-12s needed for the mission would have to be cleared through the Turkish government. Such hasty action would likely draw attention, might compromise the mission and could possibly jeopardize the status of the base with the Turks. Mado was putting the whole problem right in the lap of the command center.

  Which, Stevens thought, meant Task Force Alpha was on a hold status as far as the mission was concerned. He turned to the second message from Stansell, which asked twelve GBU-12s at RAF Stonewood be released to Lieutenant Colonel Doucette for immediate upload on an F-111. The bombs would be ferried to Incirlik as part of Task Force Alpha’s deployment package. There was no mention of coordination with the Turks.

  The colonel glanced at the master clock, then back to the messages. They were running out of time. The weapons had to be ready for immediate upload when the F-111 landed. He didn’t have time to go to Cunningham’s quarters, wake the general, explain the situation, get an okay and a message sent to Stonewood in time to make it all happen. He decided he would respond to Stansell’s request and show the messages to Cunningham when he came in. Maybe the bombs would be in Turkey by then…

  Stevens drafted a flash message to Stonewood, in Cunningham’s name releasing the munitions being built up for immediate upload. “Loose cannons get their peckers smashed for making decisions like this without authorization,” he muttered, telling himself that his wife could see him any time she wanted when he was in Leavenworth prison.

  *

  Maragheh, Iran

  The radar operator kicked off his blanket and stretched, f
eeling rested after sleeping. He ambled over to his station to check the scope, and was startled to see it was blank. He looked over his shoulder…were the other men aware of the problem? No, they were asleep. He sat down, and put on his headset while he checked the voltage. Another power surge had kicked in the automatic protection circuits and had shut the set down.

  It was easily fixed and no one was the wiser, he decided as he ran through the restart procedure. Only this time, the circuits would not reset. He was going through his checklist when the control center called. “Radio check,” his superior’s voice ordered.

  “Acknowledged,” the operator promptly answered.

  “Any questions on reporting procedures?” the officer asked.

  “None, sir.” The officer broke the connection. So, you’re going to disappear for a while, the operator thought, probably to be with your mistress. All the men knew about the ugly woman the officer kept near the control center and often joked about it since he had a beautiful wife. No accounting for taste. He closed his checklist, made sure the antenna was still rotating in case anyone should scan the radar site with binoculars, and turned off the set. “Let it cool down,” he grumbled as he picked up a newspaper he had not yet read.

  *

  The Pentagon

  Cunningham’s fingers beat a tattoo as he read the two messages from Task Force Alpha. “Current status?” he asked, looking directly at his aide. The inner tension that had been twisting Stevens’ stomach eased a bit. He had been fairly certain that Cunningham would approve of his releasing the bombs for movement to Turkey, but like the rest of the staff at the Pentagon, he was never certain about the general, who liked to keep people off balance.