by James Phelan
“Is there anybody else guarding this site?” Sefreid asked the men as Goldsmith moved forward and bound their hands behind their backs with plastic straps.
“No, just us,” said one of the guards.
“What is your mission here?” Sefreid demanded.
“We are paid to guard those caves,” said another guard, fearful for his life.
“Who hired you?” said Sefreid, already knowing whom the hirer represented.
“A Russian man who speaks like a local. Orakov is his name,” stammered the guard, his eyes fixed on the menacing men before him.
“Tents are clear,” Fox announced as he joined the group.
“Hi, everybody. This is Gammaldi. The caves are secure.” Gammaldi’s voice came over the headsets.
“Thanks, Al, you clown,” Fox replied as he looked up at the hills and saw Gammaldi waving from the main cave entrance. South of the large opening was a smaller one, about the height of Gammaldi and just as wide.
“Is anybody expected here?” Sefreid asked of the talkative guard, standing inches away from his face to intimidate him further.
“No!” the man said quickly. “We are to radio in any contact we have. We are paid month to month by Mr Orakov.”
Suddenly Fox heard a distant hum; at the same instant Geiger’s voice came over the radio.
“Heads up! We have a heavy-lift ’copter coming in fast and low from the northeast!”
Sefreid backhanded the guard.
“Everybody find cover!” he bellowed over the radios, not that anyone needed any prompting.
The Hip emerged from around the caved hill so close to the ground that a large sandstorm followed in its wake. Gibbs and Gammaldi scrambled into the smaller of the two caves and trained their weapons on the emerging threat.
Fox raced for the cover of the water tanker as the sandstorm created by the Hip’s rotor wash blanketed the campsite.
The Hip circled the camp once and saw the three Iranian guards running from the scene with their hands tied behind their backs. The pilot instinctively pulled the trigger on his toggle and the huge twin machine guns unleashed a torrent of fire against them.
“What the hell are you doing?” Antinov demanded. “Just set us down, you idiots!” he barked. He stormed back into the main cabin, fists clenched and face red with anger at the trigger-happy pilot.
“So much for the covert landing, comrade,” Farrell yelled over the engine noise.
“Imbeciles!” Antinov raged as he picked up his compact length AK-74A, the newer addition to the Kalashnikov submachine gun family.
“Let’s go, people!” Farrell called.
Jenkins opened the side door away from the camp and the SAS squad jumped out, instantly followed by the Russians.
The Hip did not touch the ground as it disgorged more than half of its occupants; it hovered a metre in the air for the few seconds the manoeuvre took, then flew off around the camp in a circling path to the cave entrance.
Fox and Sefreid lay side by side under the belly of the water tanker, watching the twelve men coming at them in two groups from five hundred metres away. The helicopter buzzed off to their side, again kicking up a cloud of sand that helped maintain their cover position behind the advancing ground troops.
“I don’t like the look of all that firepower,” Fox said. The heavy machine guns and rockets on the Hip were hovering far too close for comfort.
“I agree. Ridge, can you take a shot at the Hip?” Sefreid yelled over the maelstrom erupting around them.
“I’m ready to take them down when you say,” Ridge replied.
“Gibbs! Gammaldi! Get clear from the caves. We’re taking that ’copter down!” Sefreid bellowed.
In the smaller cave, Gibbs and Gammaldi had watched the drop-off and Gibbs was now sighting the two squads of men running towards the campsite. She thought it odd the squads were armed so differently, although they wore the same desert pattern fatigues. The sight of the Hip heading straight for her position sent her edging back into the shadows of the cave. The Hip levelled and dropped another squad of troops by the base of the cave’s main entrance. It was then that Sefreid’s order to take cover came across the radio.
“Copy that, we’re moving deeper into the cave. Take the shot!” Gibbs yelled.
She darted backwards and tripped over Gammaldi who was crouching behind her. The pair stumbled to their feet and had run fifteen strides into the cave when the explosion came.
Ridge rose from his cover position, bringing the Stinger up on his shoulder. It chimed as it locked on to the Hip’s hot engine signature.
“Rangers, lead the way,” he said, squeezing the trigger.
The instant the launcher had belched the heat-seeking missile, Ridge tossed it and ran to back up Geiger at the boat.
Farrell saw the missile streak through the air but there was no time for a warning. Within seconds, the Hip exploded in a fireball, the warhead hitting the rear turbine and disintegrating the roof of the helicopter, the main fuselage sent to the ground twenty metres below in a shattered mess. His initial fear was for the German contingent, whom he had seen alight from the ’copter just moments before.
“Zimmermann, are you—?” His call over the radio headsets was cut off by the distinct crack-crack of an M16, followed by the staccato thrumming of an M60.
“The Americans are already here!” someone in his SAS squad exclaimed, identifying the weapons.
To Farrell’s left, machine-gun fire churned up the ground around the running Russian team and they dropped for cover behind a rise of rocks. One of the Russians fell to the ground screaming as a 5.62-mm round passed through his thigh.
For the SAS men, the situation was better. They were able to take cover behind thickets of shrubbery and large rocks.
“Farrell, I have one down and we are pinned here.” Antinov’s voice came evenly over the radio.
“I copy that,” Farrell replied. He raised his head over a boulder—to have it shot at. A piece of stone scratched him under the eye. “The fire is coming from behind the tents. The trucks, I think.” Farrell ducked lower as more shots hit his rock shield.
“Zimmermann, what’s your status?” bellowed Antinov. His men struggled to assemble a small field mortar whilst crouching for cover.
“I have a few wounded and we are being pinned down by fire from the caves,” Zimmermann replied through the sound of gunfire. “We are going to fire rockets and move around the rear of the hill,” the German added matter-of-factly.
“Copy that, Zimmermann. We’re preparing a mortar if that will be of use,” Antinov said. He looked over his shoulder at his men, who signed the job was done with a thumbs up.
“That should give them something to think about. Fire a shell into the smaller of the caves,” Zimmermann replied.
“It’s on its way,” Antinov said, relaying the order to his men.
The GSR team was fighting a losing battle.
For Sefreid, Fox and Pepper, the cover of the truck was good only until the attacking force spotted them. Now the only thing keeping the attackers at bay was the constant barrage of fire, but they were quickly running out of ammo.
Goldsmith had crawled to the cover of a mound of rocks to spread the defensive front as far as possible. Beasley, Gibbs and Gammaldi were firing on the Germans, herding them away from the caves and the campsite.
In a brief pause in the gun battle, Fox heard the distinctive cough of a mortar round.
“Mortar fire! Get cover!” he yelled, covering his head with his arms where he lay face down in the sand.
Gammaldi heard Fox’s call, but Gibbs did not move from where she lay taking pot shots at the Germans below. Gammaldi yanked one of his big beefy paws onto the scruff of her flak jacket and dragged her backwards into the depths of the cave.
The mortar round struck below and to the side of the cave entrance, embedding molten shrapnel deep into the soft stone walls. The smoke and
deafening thunderclap of the blast had not cleared when a second shell exploded in the cave entrance, resulting in an instant rockfall. A deep rumbling sound reverberated through the air as the ancient rocky hill, protesting at the onslaught, belched a cloud of sandy rubble into the sky, causing the smaller cave to collapse in on itself.
In the ensuing silence, Fox looked up through sandy eyes to see Goldsmith rise from his rock cover. He fired his M16 in a fury, letting loose with a rocket-propelled grenade from the underslung M203 launcher. The grenade exploded far behind the attacking force.
“Al! Talk to me! Al! Gibbs!” Fox yelled through a faceful of sand as he also resumed firing at the attacking positions. From this angle, he could see only the sandy cloud from the cave-in and the dark plumes of smoke rising from the flaming carcass of the downed helicopter.
Before a response came, and before he could call again, Sefreid yelled from beside him: “Incoming!”
Fox’s world was thrown into turmoil. He could hear nothing, see nothing, and it felt as though his brain were spinning in his head. No pain was registering, and for a fleeting moment he thought he was at the end and resigned himself to it. He felt comfortable and light-headed, as if floating in a warm sea.
Then a jarring pain, hard and hot, pushed into his cheekbone and snapped him out of his fatalistic haze. He felt his body being dragged along the ground, then his MP5 was prised from his grasp— he did not realise he still had it until it was gone. He thought he heard voices and more gunshots, but he was too disoriented to respond.
A minute later, water was thrown onto his face and his vision cleared. He could make out Sefreid next to him, in a similar state, and the bulky shape of Pepper beyond. Raising his head, he saw four blurred figures in desert fatigues, material wrapped around their heads and faces, looking like local militia. Only they stood too straight, too alert. There was a common discipline that Special Forces men sensed in one another. And something else… Fox had trouble making sense of it as his head was still spinning, but then he realised. The guns. The men standing around him, and those who were now dragging Goldsmith over to them, weren’t armed with old AK-47s. They held the latest editions of the Heckler & Koch family: MP5s like those used by the GSR team, as well as the smaller calibre MP7s.
A man of similar proportions to Fox, but maybe ten years older, stood over him. The soldier stared into Fox’s bloodshot blue eyes, pointing his MP5 down at the unarmed man.
“I assume you are the leader?” he asked, keeping up his end of the staring contest. He had a Scottish accent. “Who are you?”
Fox was somewhat relieved at recognising a Brit. “What do you care who we are?” he replied. “We’re here to blow the site.”
The man broke his stare with Fox and looked at his companions. “We’ve been sent to blow the site as well,” he said, keeping his gun trained on Fox.
“SAS, right?” Fox said.
“Something like that.”
Fox weighed up his options as the man handed him a flask of water to wash off his face. Sefreid groaned to life by Fox’s side and he passed him the water.
“Look, the way I figure, we just smoked your means of escape.” Fox motioned to the flaming wreck of the Hip. “Let’s work together on this and share a ride back to Maragheh. From there, we go our separate ways—no questions asked.”
The man conferred with two of his companions in hushed tones. Finally he turned back to Fox. “You can tend to your injured, and don’t get in our way.”
He held out a hand to pull Fox to his feet. “We’ll be watching you,” he said into Fox’s face.
“Al!” Fox called over the throat mike for the tenth time. He, Beasley, Pepper and Goldsmith were working to clear the rubble from the cave entrance.
“Yes, Lachlan,” Gammaldi replied finally, his voice groggy.
“Al!” Fox exclaimed, throwing a rock clear into the air. “Where are you? Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Lying on a beach drinking a cocktail with a beautiful woman lying next to me.”
“Is she okay?” Fox said, a little ashamed at not asking about Gibbs earlier.
“She’s out cold. It’s too dark to see in here, but I felt around and she seems okay. Her heart rate is normal,” Gammaldi replied with unusual seriousness.
“Hang tight, we won’t be long,” Fox replied.
The four dug at the stones and rubble with renewed strength, Gammaldi egging them on with talk and commentary. He soon broke into song despite the protests of his rescuers.
“I’ve been work’n’ on the railroads…”
46
IRAN
With the help of Jenkins and the GSR men, Gammaldi and Gibbs were freed from the small cave after twenty minutes of sweating and grunting.
“Thank you, thank you,” Gammaldi said as he emerged from the small opening in the rocks, which was just big enough to crawl through. Fox helped him to his feet and he stood a little shakily. Pepper and Goldsmith pulled Gibbs out of the opening and supported her as she stood. Her short mousy blonde hair was caked with dried blood and dirt from where she’d been struck in the explosion. Both were covered from head to toe in sandy dust, like a pair of chimney sweeps.
“Remind me never to go caving again,” Gammaldi said.
Jenkins laughed. “You’re a funny lot, you Aussies,” he said. Then the big Norse descendant moved off to the larger cave. “I’d better check how the others are doing.”
“So this is an EU mission to destroy the site?” Gammaldi said after taking a long pull from the offered water flask.
“Some kind of semi-EU team. It seems they don’t want the Americans to emerge as a military superpower all over again,” Fox answered. He paced over to the larger cave.
“Mighty neighbourly of them to lend a hand,” Gammaldi said, following. He noticed the dried trickle of blood running out of Fox’s ear and down his jaw. “What happened to your ear?”
“Your singing,” Fox replied as they entered the larger cave. Gammaldi’s reply was a mock hurt look.
“I had a close encounter with a flash-bang grenade from our friends here,” Fox added. He looked around the room and saw the explosives the GSR team had been carrying in their backpacks set up at various points around the cave. Two men Fox recognised as German from their speech were delicately assembling what looked like some kind of science-fiction space object. It was the size of a basketball, bulbous in the centre, with four cylindrical canisters sprouting from the sides. The whole object was made of gleaming polished stainless steel.
“What the hell is that?” asked Gammaldi as he wiped his face with a damp cloth.
“I have no idea,” Fox said. He moved closer to the object.
A no-nonsense soldier came over. “Can I help you?” he asked in accented English. Fox pegged him as one of the GSG-9 troops Farrell had told them about.
“We’re just looking around. What’s that?” he asked, motioning to the unidentified object.
The man glanced over his shoulder and back at the two questioning men before answering. “A type of fuel air explosive, capable of vaporising up to five hundred metres around the blast zone.”
Their curiosity satisfied, Fox and Gammaldi left the Germans to finish setting the explosives and moved out of the cave. Fox paused at the entrance as a glint on the ground caught his eye. On close inspection, he realised it must be theterium. He picked up the baseball-sized rock and rubbed it on his pants, shining the centuries of dust and dirt from the surface.
“That’s the stuff?” Gammaldi asked. He looked over the ground for his own souvenir, but found none. Still, he could see the differing shade of rock set into the ground under their feet.
“That’s the stuff,” Fox confirmed as he held the crystal up to the sun. He looked through it with one eye, the swirls of red and orange within the translucent yellow stone projecting onto his face. “It’s beautiful.”
Fox went to pass the theterium to Gammaldi, only
to find him holding a small sliver he had found himself.
“Hey, this looks like an arrow head,” Gammaldi said as he held his own piece up to the sun.
“Come on, chief, let’s get out of here,” Fox said, pocketing his theterium. They set off at a jog down the hillside.
Farrell and Sefreid were talking quietly while Antinov directed his men to put out the fire-engulfed hulk of the helicopter—a task that was almost complete. They were using a combination of the water in the tanker truck—which had now run dry—and shovels of sand and had reduced the wreckage to a steaming mound as tall as a man. Both pilots had been burnt beyond recognition in the white-hot fire and were unceremoniously left in their places.
A dark cloud of smoke hung in the afternoon sky, much to Antinov’s frustration. He stormed over to his English counterpart. “Comrade Farrell, any word from Zimmermann?” he asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
“No—but he’s coming down now,” Farrell answered, pointing to the figure jogging down the hillside towards them.
“Sorry about the flash-bang,” Farrell said to Fox, as he and Gammaldi joined the Special Forces commanders.
“It was an experience,” Fox admitted with a smile.
“This is Al, a good friend of mine,” Fox said, and gestured to Antinov. “I believe one of your men sent him a present in the form of a mortar shell, Major.”
“Yes, good to see you in one piece,” Antinov said, slapping Gammaldi on his much-bruised arm.
“It’s good to be in one piece, let me tell you!” Gammaldi assured the men. They were all laughing as Zimmermann appeared.
“My men are setting the timing device for thirty minutes. May I suggest we evacuate the site?” the German said with a gleam in his eye.
