by Tom Clancy
With his soft vehicles in the lead and his fighting tracks guarding the rear with their turrets turned aft, Major Ab-dullah had thought about making one more stand, but didn't have the combat power to hold much of anything against what he knew had to be behind him. His men were exhausted by twenty-four hours of continuous combat operations, and the worst off were his tank drivers. Their position in the front of their vehicles was so comfortable as to cause them to fall asleep, only to be awakened by the shouts of their tank commanders, or the lurch of heading off the road into a ditch. His additional concern was that he'd expected to make contact with friendly units—battlefields, he'd learned in the past day, were anything but friendly places.
They appeared as white blobs at first on the thermal-imaging scopes, the vehicles straggling down the highway. Eddington, in his command post, knew that there might be some Saudi stragglers downbound, and had warned his recon screen to expect it, but it wasn't until the evening's Predators took to the sky that he was sure. Through the thermal viewers, the distinctive flat top of the M1A2 tanks was clearly visible. This information he relayed to HOOTOWL, his recon detachment, which lessened their tension as the shapeless thermal blobs on their ground-based viewing systems gradually turned into friendlier profiles. Even then, there was the chance that friendly vehicles had been captured and converted to enemy use.
Troopers cracked chemical-light wands and dropped them on the road. These were spotted and the advancing trucks stopped practically on top of them, even rolling slowly as they were, without lights. A handful of Saudi liaison officers assigned to WOLFPACK verified their identity and waved them south. Major Abdullah, arriving at the screening position ten minutes later, jumped out of his command track, along with Colonel Berman. The American Guardsmen handed over food and water, first of all, quickly followed by GI coffee out of their MRE packs, the sort with triple the normal amount of caffeine.
"They're a ways back, but they're coming," Berman said. "My friend here—well, he's had a busy day."
The Saudi major was at the point of collapse, the physical and mental exertions like nothing he'd ever known. He staggered over to the HOOTOWL command post and, over a map, relayed what he knew as coherently as he could.
"We must stop them," he concluded.
"Major, why don't you head on down about ten miles, and you'll see the biggest fuckin' roadblock ever was. Nice job, son," the lawyer from Charlotte told the young man. The major walked off toward his track. "Was it that tough?" he asked Berman when the Saudi was out of earshot.
"I know they killed fifty tanks, and that's just the ones I could see," Berman said, sipping coffee from a metal cup. "A lot more coming, though."
"Really?" the lawyer/lieutenant colonel said. "That suits us just fine. No friendlies back of you?"
Berman shook his head. "No chance."
"You head on down the road now, Berman. Ten miles, and then you watch the show, y'hear?"
They looked like Americans, Berman saw, in their desert BDUs, their faces painted under the German-shaped Fritz helmets. There were red-shielded lights to point at the maps. It was dark out here, about as dark as a clear sky could get, just the stars enabling him to tell the difference between land and sky. A sliver of moon would appear later, but that wouldn't be much. The screen commander had a command HMMWV with lots of radios. Beyond, he could see a single Bradley, a few troops, and little else. But they stood like Americans and they spoke like Americans.
"Hoor-Six, this is Two-Niner."
"Two-Niner, Six, go," the commander took the radio.
"We have some movement, five miles north of our position. Two vehicles nosing around right on the horizon."
"Roger, Two-Niner. Keep us informed. Out." He turned to Berman. "Get going, Colonel. We have work to do here."
THERE WAS A flanking screen. That would be the enemy II Corps, Colonel Hamm thought. His forward line of Kiowa scout helicopters was now watching it. The Kiowas—the military version of the Bell 206, the copter most often used in America for reporting on traffic congestion—specialized in hiding, most often behind hills and ridges, with just the top-mounted electronic periscope peering about the terrain while the pilot held his aircraft in hover, seeing but not seen, while the TV systems recorded the event, relaying their «take» back. Hamm had six of them up now, advance scouts for his 4th Squadron, ten miles in front of his ground elements, now lying still thirty miles southeast of KKMC.
While he watched his display in the Star Wars Track, technicians converted the information from the Kiowa scouts into data that could be displayed graphically and distributed to the fighting vehicles in his command. Next came data from the Predator drones. They were up, covering the roads and desert south of the captured city, with one drone over it. The streets, he saw, were full of fuel and supply trucks. It was a convenient place to hide them.
Most important, electronic sensors were now at work.
The UIR forces were moving too fast to rely on radio silence. Commanders had to talk back and forth. Those sources were moving, but they were moving predictably now, talking almost all the time, as commanders told sub-units where to go and what to do, got information and reported it up the chain. He had two brigade CPs positively identified, and probably a divisional one, too.
Hamm changed display to get the larger picture. Two divisions were moving south from KKMC now. That would be the enemy I Corps, spread on a ten-mile frontage, two divisions moving abreast in columns of brigades, a tank brigade in front, mobile artillery right behind it. II Corps was moving to their left, spread thin to provide flank guard. Ill Corps appeared to be in reserve. The deployment was conventional and predictable. First contact with WOLFPACK would be in about an hour, and he would hold back until then, allowing I Corps to pass north to south, right to left along his front.
There hadn't been time to prepare the battlefield properly. The Guard troops lacked a full engineer detachment and the antitank mines they might have strewn to dirty up the terrain. There hadn't been time to prepare proper obstacles and traps. They'd scarcely been in place for ten hours, and the full brigade less than that. All they really had was a fire plan. WOLFPACK could shoot short wherever it wanted, but all deep fire had to be west of the road.
"Pretty good picture here, sir," his S-2 intelligence officer said.
"Send it out." And with that, every fighting vehicle in the Blackhorse had the same digital picture of the enemy that he had. Then Hamm lifted his radio.
"WOLFPACK-Six, this is BLACKHORSE-SIX."
"This is WoLFpACK-Six-AcruAL. Thanks for the data feed, Colonel," Eddington replied over the digital radio. Both units also knew where all the friendlies were. "I'd say initial contact in about an hour."
"Ready to rock, Nick?" Hamm asked.
"Al, it's all I can do to hold my boys back. We are locked and cocked," the Guard commander assured him. "We have visual on their advance screen now."
"You know the drill, Nick. Good luck."
"Blackhorse," Eddington said in parting.
Hamm changed settings on his radio, calling BUFORD-Six.
"I have the picture, Al," Marion Diggs assured him, a hundred miles back and not liking that fact one bit. He was sending men into battle by remote control, and that came hard to a new general officer.
"Okay, sir, we are fully in place. All they have to do is walk in the door."
"Roger, BLACKHORSE. Standing by here. Out."
The most important work was now being done by the Predators. The UAV operators, sited with Hamm's intelligence section, circled their mini-aircraft higher to minimize the chance they might be spotted or heard. Cameras pointed down, counting and checking locations. The Immortals were on the enemy left, and the former Iraqi Guards Division on the right, west of the road. They were moving along steadily, battalions on line and tightly packed for maximum power and shock effect if they encountered opposition, ten miles behind their own reconnaissance screen. Behind the lead brigade was the divisional artillery. This force was divi
ded in two, and as they watched in the intel track, one half halted, spread out, and set up to provide covering fire, while the other half took up and moved forward. Again, that was right out of the book. They would be in place for about ninety minutes. The Predators flew over the line of guns, marking their position from GPS signals. That data went down to the MLRS batteries. Two more Predators were sent along. These were dedicated to getting exact locations on enemy command vehicles.
"WELL, I'M NOT sure when this will go out," Donner told the camera. "I'm here inside Bravo-Three-Two, number-two scout track in 3rd Platoon of B-Troop. We just got information on where the enemy is. He's about twenty miles west of us right now. There are at least two divisions moving south on the road from King Khalid Military City. I know now that a brigade of the North Carolina National Guard is in a blocking position. They deployed with the 11th Cavalry Regiment because they were at the National Training Center for routine training.
"The mood here—well, how can I explain this? The troopers of the Blackhorse Regiment, they're almost like doctors, strange as that may sound. These men are angry at what's happened to their country, and I've talked to them about it, but right now, like doctors waiting for the ambulance to come into the emergency room. It's quiet in the track. We just heard that we'll be moving west in a few minutes to the jump-off point.
"I want to add a personal note. Not long ago, as you all know, I violated a rule of my profession. I did something wrong. I was misled, but the fault was mine. I learned earlier today that the President himself requested that I should come here—maybe to get me killed?" Donner ad-libbed in an obvious joke. "No, not that. This is the sort of situation that people in the news business live for. I am here where history may soon take place, surrounded by other Americans who have an important job to do, and however this turns out, this is where a reporter belongs. President Ryan, thank you for the chance.
"This is Tom Donner, southeast of KKMC, with B-Troop, 1st Squadron of the Blackhorse." He lowered the mike. "Got that?"
"Yes, sir," the Army spec-5 told him. The soldier said something into his own microphone. "Okay, that went up to the satellite, sir."
"Good one, Tom," the track commander said, lighting up a cigarette. "Come here. I'll show you how this IVIS thing works and—" He stopped, holding his helmet with his hand to hear what was coming over the radio. "Start 'er up, Stanley," he told the driver. "It's showtime."
HE LET THEM come in. The man commanding the WOLFPACK'S reconnaissance screen was a criminal-defense attorney by profession who'd actually graduated from West Point but later decided on a civilian career. He'd never quite lost the bug, as he thought of it, though he didn't quite know why. Age forty-five now, he'd been in uniformed service of one sort or another for almost thirty years of drills and exhausting exercise and mind-numbing routine which took away from his time and his family. Now, in the front line of his recon force, he knew why.
The lead scout vehicles were two miles to his front. He estimated two platoons that he could see, a total often vehicles spread across three miles, moving three or four at a time in the darkness. Maybe they had low-light gear. He wasn't sure of that, but had to assume that they did. On his thermal systems he could make them out as BRDM-2 scout cars, four-wheeled, equipped with a heavy machine gun or antitank missiles. He saw both versions, but he was especially looking for the one with four radio antennas. That would be the platoon or company commander's vehicle…
"Antenna track direct front," a Bradley commander called from four hundred meters to the colonel's right. "Range two-kay meters, moving in now."
The lawyer-officer lifted his head above the abbreviated ridge and scanned the field with his thermal viewer. Now was as good a time as any.
"HoorowL, this is Six, party in ten, I say again, party in ten seconds. Four-Three, stand by."
"Four-Three is standing by, Six." That Bradley would take the first shot in 2nd of KKMC. The gunner selected high-explosive incendiary tracer. A BRDM wasn't tough enough to need the armor-piercing rounds he had in the dual-feed magazine of his Bushmaster cannon. He centered the target in his pipper, and the on-board computer adjusted for the range.
"Eat shit and die," the gunner said into the interphones.
"HOOTOWL, Six, commence firing, commence firing."
"Fire!" the track commander told the gunner. The spec-4 on the 25mm gun depressed the triggers for a three-round burst. All three tracers made a line across the desert, and all three hit. The command BRDM erupted into a fireball as the vehicle's gas tank—strangely for a Russian-made vehicle, it was not diesel-powered— exploded. "Target!" the commander said instantly, confirming that the gunner had destroyed it. "Traverse left, target burdum."
"Identified!" the gunner said when he was locked on.
"Fire!" A second later: "Target! Cease fire, traverse right! Target burdum, two o'clock, range fifteen hundred!" The Bradley's gun turret rotated the other way as the enemy vehicles started to react.
"Identified!"
"Fire!" And the third one was dead, ten seconds after the first.
Within a minute, all the BRDMs the screen commander had seen were burning. The brilliant white light made him cringe to see. Then other flashes appeared left and right of his position. Then: "Move out, run 'em down!"
Across ten miles of desert, twenty Bradleys darted from behind their hiding places, going forward, not backward, their turrets traversing and their gunners hunting for enemy scout vehicles. A short, vicious, running gunfight began, lasting ten minutes and three klicks, with the BRDMs trying to pull back but unable to shoot back effectively. Two Sagger antitank missiles were launched, but both fell short and exploded in the sand when their launch vehicles were killed by Bushmaster fire. Their heavy machine guns weren't powerful enough to punch through the Bradleys' frontal armor. The enemy screen, comprising a total of thirty vehicles, was exterminated by the end of it, and HOOTOWL owned this part of the battlefield.
"WOLFPACK, this is HOOT-SIX-ACTUAL, I think we got 'em all. Their lead screen is toast. No casualties," he added. God damn, he thought, those Bradleys can shoot.
"SOME RADIO CHATTER got out, sir," the ELINT trooper next to Eddington reported. "Getting some more now."
"He's calling for artillery fire," a Saudi intelligence officer said quickly.
"HOOT, you may expect some fire shortly," Eddington warned.
"Roger, understand. HOOT is moving forward."
IT WAS SAFER than staying in place or falling back. On command, the Bradleys and Hummers darted two klicks to the north, looking for the enemy supplementary reconnaissance screen—there had to be some—which would move up now, probably cautiously, on direction of their brigade or divisional commanders. This, the Guard lieutenant colonel knew, would be the reconnaissance battle, the undercard for the main event, with the lightweights duking it out before the heavyweights closed. But there was a difference. He could continue to shape the battlefield for WOLFPACK. He expected to find another company of reconnaissance vehicles, closely followed by a heavy advanced guard of tanks and BMPs. The Bradley had TOW missiles to do the tanks, and the Bushmaster had been designed for the express purpose of killing the infantry carrier they called the bitnp. Moreover, though the enemy now knew where the Blue Force recon screen was—had been—he would expect it to fall back, not advance.
That was plain two minutes later, when a planned-fire barrage dropped a klick behind the moving Bradleys. The other side was playing it by the book, the old Soviet book. And it wasn't a bad book, but the Americans had read it, too. HOOTOWL pressed on rapidly for another klick and stopped, finding a convenient line of low ridges, with blobs on the horizon again. The lawyer/colonel lifted his radio to report that.
"BUFORD, THISIS WOLFPACK, we are in contact, sir," Ed-dington relayed to Diggs from his CP. "We just clobbered their recon element. Our screening forces now have visual on the advance guard. My intentions are to engage briefly and pull them back and right, southeast. We have enemy artillery fire dropping b
etween the screen and the main body. Over."
"Roger, WOLFPACK." On his command screen, Diggs saw the advancing Bradleys, moving in a fairly even line, but well spread. Then they started spotting movement. The things they saw started appearing as unknown-enemy symbols on the IVIS command system.
It was immensely frustrating to the general in command. He had more knowledge of a developing battle than had ever been possible in the history of warfare. He had the ability now to tell platoons what to do, where to go, whom to shoot—but he couldn't allow himself to do that. He'd approved the intentions of Eddington, Hamm, and Magruder, coordinating their plans in space and time, and now as their commander he had to let them do it their way, interfering only if something went wrong or some new and unexpected situation offered itself. The commander of American forces in the Kingdom, he was now a spectator. The black general shook his head in wonderment. He'd known it would be like this. He hadn't known how hard it would hit him.
IT WAS ALMOST time. Hamm had his squadrons advancing abreast, covering only ten kilometers each, but separated by intervals often more. In every case, the squadron commanders had opted to have their scout troops in the lead, and their tank companies in reserve. Each troop had nine tanks and thirteen Brads, plus two mortar-carrying Ml 13 tracks. In front of them, now seven kilometers away, were the brigades of UIRII Corps, bloodied by the breakthrough battles north of KKMC, weakened, but probably alert. There was nothing like violent death to get someone's attention. His helicopters and video feed from the Predators had well defined their positions. He knew where they were. They didn't know about him yet—probably, he had to admit. Certainly they were trying as hard as he would have done to make sure. His final order was for his helicopters to make one more sweep of the intervening terrain for an enemy outpost line. Everything else was pretty well locked into place, and fifty miles back, his Apaches started lifting off, along with their Kiowa scouts, for their part in the main event.
