Battleline (2007) s-5

by Jack Terral

  "It was only those old places that were blown apart," Cruiser said. "The ones we built came through the fight in fine fettle."

  "That's strange," Brannigan commented. "The ones the Pashtuns made were well built. And camouflaged too." He was thoughtful for a moment, then exclaimed, "Just a goddamn minute! Weren't we told that the Arabs on the other side spent some time here?"

  "Yes, sir," Cruiser said. "And also an Iranian SF officer."

  "Those bastards!" Brannigan said. "They must've pointed out the exact locations of those old defensive sites to their fire support. They knew exactly where they were. Their weapons support people were already zeroed in on them before the attack even started."

  "Jesus!" Chief Gunnarson exclaimed. "We should've thought of that."

  "It's those kinds of little lapses and slips that cost lives," Brannigan said. He glanced at Taylor. "Chalk that up to lessons learned, mister."

  "Aye, sir!"

  The session was interrupted by Bruno Puglisi hollering down the hole in the top of the bunker. "Chopper coming in!" A couple of moments passed, then he yelled again. "Commander Carey and Commander Berringer are on it!"

  Brannigan chuckled without humor. "Well, when those two show up you can be sure that our adventures in these parts are about to be kicked up another notch. Who's the petty officer of the watch?"

  "Sturgis," Cruiser replied. "He'll act as escort for our visitors."

  Hospital Corpsman Doc Bradley stepped in from his bailiwick, walking over to where Doug MacTavish sat. He took the wounded man by the arm. "That's your ticket out of here. C'mon, I'll take you to the LZ."

  Cruiser spoke up. "We've got his gear ready in the First Section's area, Doc. Stop by on the way and have one of the guys carry it out for you."

  "Aye, sir," Bradley said. "The Odd Couple took Halonen topside earlier." He led MacTavish outside.

  "There's a damn good corpsman," Chief Gunnarson remarked. "We'll be losing him pretty soon."

  "Is he getting out of the Navy?" Taylor asked.

  "No, sir," Gunnarson answered. "He's signed up for NCP. He already had his premed studies completed before he enlisted. He'll be finishing up his education to be a doctor, and plans on serving in the Navy MC as a trauma surgeon."

  "The injured and wounded will really be in good hands then," Cruiser commented.

  PO Monty Sturgis led Carey and Berringer into the cave. The two staff officers toted their briefcases, as they usually did. Carey motioned everyone to remain seated as he and Berringer joined the group. "I read the report on last night's battle. Short and nasty, hey? Too bad about the casualties."

  "Yes, sir," Brannigan said.

  "Well, another situation has arisen," Carey said. "And if you're looking for some payback time, this may be it. I'll let Commander Berringer explain it all to you."

  "We've heard from Aladdin again," Berringer said, pulling several maps from his briefcase. "It was a brief transmission but had a lot of information. On fifteen June, a detachment of twenty Arab volunteers will be on its way to join your neighbors on the other side of the valley. And they'll be coming by foot." He began passing out the maps. "These have been prepared for you. You'll notice the only markings are ones that deal with their arrival."

  Brannigan looked at the chart. "Aren't those reinforcements coming in by chopper?"

  "Negative," Berringer replied. "They don't want you alerted, so these guys are taking a fifty-kilometer walk from their jumping-off point to this area." He gave his audience a meaningful glance. "That means they're highly trained, well equipped, and in damn good physical condition."

  "I hope you're here to get us ready to form a reception party," Senior Chief Dawkins said.

  "That's it exactly," Carey replied. "As you see by their route, they're coming in through rugged territory to avoid detection. We'll be able to have the Air Force fly you to a convenient LZ in that area to make contact. The flight won't attract any undue attention, since they drop off recon teams there from time to time. And it won't take you long to unass the aircraft, since all you have to do is run down the ramp to the ground."

  "You are to interrupt their journey and render them ineffective," Berringer said. "And try grabbing us an EPW or two as well. When the job is done, the Air Force will pick you up at either the same LZ, or another if your prefer."

  "When do we leave?" Brannigan asked.

  "Immediately if not sooner," Carey replied. "You'll fly out with us. So gather the guys you want, and we'll take you back to Shelor Field, where you can ready yourselves and firm up any OPORD you care to make."

  Brannigan paused a moment, then said, "Alright. I'll be in command of the mission. I'm gonna take the Sneaky Petes. That's six of us. Oh, yeah. And Puglisi and Miskoski. That'll make eight. Mmm." He pondered a bit more than said, "And Ensign Taylor."

  "Thank you, sir!" Taylor happily exclaimed.

  "It's a good chance to enhance your experience," Brannigan remarked. He looked at Cruiser. "You'll stay back here in command. Turn the First Section over to your senior petty officer."

  "Aye, sir!"

  Brannigan's attention was now directed to Senior Chief Petty Officer Buford Dawkins. "You heard my choices of personnel, Senior Chief. Round 'em up and get 'em in here." As the senior chief rushed off to tend to the chore, Brannigan turned back to Cruiser. "Rebuild the fighting positions that were knocked down last night, but don't put 'em back in the same spot or they'll get pulverized again."

  "Aye, sir!"

  "What was that all about?" Carey asked. "Have your defenses been compromised?"

  "I'll explain during the flight back to Shelor," Brannigan said. "Excuse me. I have to pack a few things."

  CHAPTER 7

  ZAHEYA POSITIONS

  BRIGADIER'S HEADQUARTERS

  13 JUNE 0945 HOURS

  BRIGADIER Shahruz Khohollah was pleased. He smoked his Turkish cigarette almost gleefully as he looked across his desk at Sikes Pasha, Captain Khadid, and Captain Komard. "The attack of last night was a superb victory!"

  Sikes wasn't so sure about a "superb victory," but it obviously was a tactical success in that the enemy's defensive system was damaged by concentrating fire on known positions to destroy them. This was accomplished as planned. "When them reinforcements arrive, we'll give the Yanks a what-for they ain't soon to forget, yeah?"

  Komard was interested in the new men. "How many are we receiving, Sikes Pasha?"

  "Twenty," he replied. "It doubles me force, that's wot it does." He glanced over at the Brigadier. "Things are a lot better than when we was at Chehaar Garrison, hey, Brigadier?"

  "Absolutely correct, Major Sikes," the brigadier said. He did not refer to Sikes by the title "Pasha," since he outranked the Brit. In fact, there were times when Khohollah was irritated by the arrogant manner in which Sikes conducted himself. It smacked of the old colonial attitudes of the British Empire. But the brigadier was convinced that the General Staff put great value on this deserter from the UK, and any undue complaints about him might prove most disadvantageous to the career of anyone who denigrated the man.

  "Our situation improves daily," Captain Khadid said. He had never been at Chehaar Garrison during the situation with the armored cars. He had been in the Pashtun camp as a personal adviser to Yama Orakzai, the Pashtun rebel leader. This had been before and during the setbacks and humiliations that had been inflicted on Sikes by the Americans. The situation had infuriated the former British soldier.

  "Yes," the brigadier said. "We are much better off." He was personally miffed as a general officer by the number of men he commanded. Even with the arrival of the Arab volunteers, he would have less than a hundred under his overall control. And no artillery. By proper military custom, Khohollah should have been leading two thousand to five thousand men into battle. However, in spite of the resentment, he showed enthusiasm and optimism for the sake of his subordinate officers and soldiers. He smiled at his loyal adjutant, Captain Jamshid Komard, whom he had given the command of the fire sup
port unit. "Your men made superlative work of covering the withdrawal as well as knocking out the defensive positions."

  "I shall pass on your compliments to the gunners, Excellency," Komard said. "They will be most happy about your approval." He hesitated, then asked, "Do you think there is a chance of us receiving mortars to replace the grenade launchers, Excellency?"

  The brigadier shook his head. "Do not anticipate any such happening, dear Komard. To express the truth, I was greatly surprised by the reinforcements. I did not expect such a thing unless the Amerikayizan increased their strength in soldiers or weapons."

  Captain Khadid lit a cigarette. "The political and diplomatic aspects of this operation truly test a soldier's patience, do they not?"

  "You speak the absolute truth, Captain," Brigadier Khohollah agreed. "But we must keep in mind that the Iranian government is not run by the Army."

  Sikes nodded. "I'm finding all that a bit too much to swallow meself. I'd just as soon give them Yanks a good whipping, then get the Pashtuns back in their place. Then we can get on with taking over Afghanistan."

  "Be patient, Major Sikes," the brigadier advised him. He smiled, saying, "Could it be that you miss your little Pashtun wife?"

  "I miss her, alright," Sikes admitted. "But we ain't married no more, since me and Cap'n Khadid was told to leave. That ended the marriage. It was a muta anyhow and supposed to be temporary by Islamic law." He paused hesitantly for a moment, then said, "I don't like to stick me nose in places where it ain't wanted, but I been wondering a bit if you have a wife or wives you miss."

  "I only had one wife," the brigadier said. "She died five years ago. We were, alas, a childless couple; thus I have no descendants. Nor are there kin of any sort. And I cannot muster the desire for another woman. I believe, for whatever reason, that Allah in his mercy does not want me to remarry. I am now an old soldier alone in the world." He gestured around him. "And here I am in this strange situation, tied down by puzzling orders issued by my government."

  "It ain't all bad, sir," Sikes said. "We do have some leeway in that we can carry on harassing tactics in any manner that suits us." He leaned forward. "I'm working on a couple o' plans, sir. When I get everything straight in me head, I'll bring 'em up." He was thoughtful for a moment, then spoke again. "I was wondering, Brigadier, that wot if we had some rotten luck and them Yanks kicked us out o' here, hey? Wot'd happen then?"

  "I have heard no official word," Khohollah said. "However, in my personal opinion, almost the entire Iranian Army would be sent here to storm straight into Afghanistan and create a situation the Yanks--as you call them--would find most disturbing. We will stay low-key as long as they stay low-key. But we are eventually going to conquer Afghanistan, then the entirety of the Middle East."

  Khadid smiled at Sikes. "The preliminary steps we take on this journey to glory must be careful and deliberate, Sikes Pasha. At least at this point in time."

  "I understand," Sikes said. "But I don't like it one bluddy fucking bit."

  "By the way, Excellency," Khadid said, "I am due to make a transmission back to Iran this evening. Do you have any messages for the high command?"

  "Only that we are moving along according to plan," Brigadier Khohollah said. "There is nothing negative to report. By the way, will you be using the radio in the signals center, Captain?"

  "No, Excellency," Khadid said. "That will not be necessary. I still have the one I took to Orakzai's fortress."

  .

  WESTERN AFGHANISTAN

  JUNE 1600 HOURS

  ENSIGN Orlando Taylor sat in the web seat aboard the Pave Low chopper, furtively studying the eight other SEALs who shared the aircraft with him. From their demeanors, anybody would think they were on their way to a peaceful picnic in the country instead of a violent confrontation in which men would be killed by other men.

  Taylor had marveled about the fact that he had finally been under fire. Although he knew it wasn't a prolonged battle with many casualties, it was still combat. He had been scared, sure, but it didn't keep him from doing the job properly. He kept an eye on the situation, watched over his men, and coordinated everything through Petty Officers Paul Schreiner and Tony Valenzuela, who were his fire team leaders. When the SAW gunner Doug MacTavish had been hit, Taylor hadn't lost his head or flinched at the sight of the man's bloodied face. In fact, it had been he who pulled the wounded SEAL from the rubble of his blasted fighting position to safety. The best thing about the whole experience was that he had done nothing to shame himself or the Taylor family. He could openly and truthfully discuss the fighting with his father without fear of disapproval.

  Taylor grinned to himself in a somewhat fierce manner as he thought of this latest experience in context with his three older brothers. As the youngest he had been the butt of jokes from those overachievers, who never accepted him as an equal. It seemed he would always be "the kid" in the family. The oldest sibling, now thirty-two years of age, was a vice president in a very prestigious bank in Atlanta; the second, at age twenty-nine, was an aerospace engineer with NASA in Houston in the Shuttle Program; and the twenty-seven-year-old was on the staff of a Georgia senator, and being groomed by the state's Democratic Party to run for Congress in the next election.

  Damn fine accomplishments, Taylor thought, but not a one of them has been in combat as a Navy SEAL. He hoped his father would take notice of the fact and mention it at every opportunity during the next family reunion.

  THE helicopter came in low and slow at an altitude of four feet AGL. The rear doors were open and the ramp down as Lieutenant Bill Brannigan stood at the head of the line of men making up the combat patrol. At a nod from the crew chief, the Skipper went down the ramp and leaped off to the ground. He was quickly followed by Connie Concord, the Odd Couple, and Matty Matsuno, who carried a five-gallon jerry can of potable water attached to a backpack. Then Garth Redhawk with an AN/PRC-112 radio unassed the aircraft; Ensign Orlando Taylor, Bruno Puglisi, and Joe Miskoski were the last out. Everyone was armed with M-16s, with two exceptions: Puglisi and Miskoski carried their AS-50 semiauto sniper rifles with two bandoliers of modified twenty-round magazines for the weapons.

  The chopper immediately rose back into the sky as the ass end closed. Brannigan led his eight men over to the cover of a stand of boulders for an on-site confab. But before the session could begin, an angry cobra emerged from the rocks with its hood flared as it assumed the standard upright pose of aggression. The Skipper gazed at the poisonous reptile. "I think we have a territorial issue here."

  Puglisi, impetuous as always, made a slow approach toward the snake, evidently with the intention of trying to grasp it. Redhawk, who was well acquainted with the rattlesnakes of Oklahoma, did not think that a good idea. "Bruno," he said calmly, "if that son of a bitch bites you, we won't have much time to make our good-byes to you. So let us know when you're going to make a serious move toward him, and we'll bid you a fond farewell. With luck you'll last maybe five minutes after he sinks his fangs into you."

  The snake darted its head at the SEAL, and Puglisi instinctively jumped back. "I thought you could charm these motherfuckers."

  Joe Miskoski laughed. "Bruno, you don't have a flute, like snake charmers use, you dumb shit." Then he laughed louder.

  "Besides, you're about as charming as a grumpy rhinoceros with gas and heartburn."

  Brannigan grinned. "Let's try to be diplomatic like Dr. Joplin where that snake is concerned, okay? We'll just politely get out of his bailiwick."

  The patrol moved away from the natural rock pile toward another. The cobra didn't follow, but he was plainly going to stand his ground. Now the Skipper could concentrate on the job ahead. "We're only a kilometer from the ambush site here, but I want to have a little briefback before we go over there." He pointed to Puglisi. "What's your job?"

  "I'll be at the front of the ambush, and when the last man passes me, I'll whack the son of a bitch," Puglisi said. "Then knock off any of the bad guys who try to escape in my direct
ion."

  Brannigan turned to Miskoski. "What about you?"

  "Well, we figured the enemy column isn't gonna be too strung out, since this is a safe area for 'em," Miskoski said. "So I'm gonna be down about thirty to forty meters from Bruno to close up the front. When the first man comes up even with me, I'll take him out."

  Next it was Connie Concord's turn. "Ever'body is gonna find a good place between Bruno and Joe. We'll space ourselves out as even as possible, depending on the terrain and available cover. When the shooting starts, we'll go for targets of opportunity to our direct fronts."

  "Right," Brannigan said. He nodded to Taylor. "Ensign, describe the site."

  "Aye, sir," Taylor said. "It's a narrow pass through these hills with steep sides that go from ten to twelve meters deep. We'll set up only on one side, since the enemy cannot escape from the gully with any ease or speed. They, in fact, will have walked into a natural trap."

  "Okay," Brannigan said. "It's sweet and simple. Keep in mind that we're also tasked with getting EPWs if possible. If you see any guy that looks like he wants to quit or surrender, ease up. Questions? Right then. Let's move out and settle down. We won't have much to do until tomorrow morning. So, to quote the first and oldest military order ever issued, 'Follow me.' " He started to move out, but stopped. "Oh! One more thing."

  "What's that, sir?" Dave Leibowitz asked.

  "Watch out for snakes."

  .

  15 JUNE 0900 HOURS

  THE SEAL patrol had good cover and concealment from their position overlooking the narrow valley, but there was no shade overhead. Bruno Puglisi, with a fresh magazine in the receiver of his AS-50 and half a dozen others lying out within reach, was uncomfortably warm. Each man had brought along a couple of two-quart canteens, and there was that jerry can of water being lugged around by Matty Matsuno. However, the patrol drank sparingly because of potential SNAFUs. Unexpected things happened continually in warfare, and the enemy reinforcements could be delayed by a glitch in their transportation arrangements, ammo issue, or dozens of other things. The Brigands could end up spending two or three days at the location.