Iron Gate

by Richard Herman

  ‘That may cross the line into peace enforcement,’ Carroll said.

  ‘But not quite,’ the President replied. ‘I want to test the idea, free of public attention. It’s time to find out what the UN can really do.’

  ‘We can do that,’ Carroll said. ‘I’ll get Mazie working it.’ He paused. ‘We’re going to scramble a lot of eggs.’

  ‘Just don’t get any on our face.’

  *

  Sunday, April 5

  Ysterplaat Air Base, Cape Town

  *

  It was just after midnight, early Sunday morning, when Pontowski glanced at his watch; he had been talking to his son for over fifteen minutes. Their phone calls had become a ritual, four to five times a week. Fortunately, the time difference worked in his favor and he called before he went to bed. But the phone bills were astronomical. Hell of a way to be a father, he thought. ‘Let me speak to Martha,’ he said, ‘and I’ll call you Monday afternoon about this time.’

  She came on the line. ‘How’s Sara doing?’ he asked.

  ‘Considering she just lost a husband,’ Martha answered, ‘and is due in six weeks, amazingly well. Little Matt is doing fine.’ She hesitated, trying to find the right words. ‘Sara is going to stay here until after the baby is born and things settle down. But she wants to move back to Kansas City. Matt, I’ll have to go with her.’

  Pontowski understood what Martha was telling him. He had to make a home for his son and quit relying on others. ‘Thanks for the heads up,’ he told her. ‘I should be back in a month or so.’ He hung up and lay back in his chair. Soon he was going to have to leave the Air Force, no doubt about it.

  Almost immediately the phone rang. ‘Colonel Pontowski,’ a man’s voice said, ‘this is Stan Pauley, Techtronics International.’ Pontowski immediately made the connection. It was the CIA station chief, Richard Standard, using one of his covers. ‘Can we meet at my office as soon as possible?’ Standard asked.

  ‘See you in fifteen minutes,’ Pontowski replied.

  *

  Mazie Hazelton was waiting when Pontowski arrived at Standard’s office. ‘Mazie tells me you know each other,’ Standard said.

  ‘We go back a ways,’ Pontowski told him.

  ‘To China,’ Mazie added.

  Pontowski knew the protocols used for handling supersensitive information, directives, and orders. Mazie was a messenger carrying something too critical to be entrusted to electronic transmission. ‘I’m almost afraid to ask what brings you here,’ he said.

  Mazie gave him a little nod. ‘Mr Carroll sent me to be sure there was no confusion over this.’ She paused, carefully selecting her next words. ‘The President wants to expand your role so you can carry out delayed strikes, without warning, against any group who has attacked UN forces.’

  ‘Like the Azanians?’ Standard asked. Mazie nodded in agreement.

  ‘Are we talking covert operations?’ Pontowski asked.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Mazie answered. ‘We carry out the planning in secret to maximize the element of surprise. I’ve just come from Paris where I talked to the French. They have agreed to the concept and are willing to let de Royer’s legionnaires participate.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ Pontowski said, ‘what has happened to de Royer? He’s been gone almost three weeks. That’s a hell of a long time. Is he coming back or am I the permanent commander here?’

  ‘He’s coming back as soon as he assembles a backbone for the French politicians,’ Mazie said.

  ‘So he’s having political problems too?’ Standard mumbled.

  ‘Much worse than ours,’ Mazie told him.

  ‘My problem is operational security and execution,’ Pontowski said. ‘I need tight control at this end. The UN Observer Mission, the South African government, everyone you can think of, has got to be cut out of the picture. I’ve got to have total control at this end and not have to coordinate with anyone. And once the decision is made, we move fast.

  Mazie nodded in agreement. ‘The Azanians are your first target.’

  ‘Payback time for Kimberley?’ Standard asked.

  Mazie ignored him and handed Pontowski a thick folder with photographs and maps. ‘The best window of opportunity is Tuesday morning. We have information that the Azanian leadership will be at their main headquarters. It’s a golden opportunity.’

  ‘That’s less than forty-eight hours,’ Pontowski said. ‘I’ll talk to Bouchard and see what his Quick Reaction Force can do.’

  ‘Colonel,’ Standard said, ‘we can help.’

  *

  Tuesday, April 7

  Near Kimberley, South Africa

  *

  The radar antenna rotated above the large farmstead the Azanian Liberation Army had plundered and then taken for its headquarters. A cold wind whipping down off the Karoo had driven the guards into the barns to await the first light of dawn and they were asleep, certain that no officer would be making the rounds at one o’clock in the morning to check on them.

  The young Azanian surveillance operator in the radar shack studied the only target on the radar scope in front of him. The first beads of sweat rolled down his dark face and he wiped at his forehead with a dirty rag. The German who had trained him had been very insistent about not spilling any liquids on the keyboard. It was cool in the radar shack and he was sweating because this was his first night shift and the first time he had been confronted with an unusual situation without the German to help him. He glanced over at the sleeping Syrian and decided not to ask him for help. The Syrians were as worthless as the brothers, he decided. Still, he did have to deal with the problem.

  He played with the computer’s track ball and rolled the cursor over the target. His forefinger pressed the middle button above to the track ball, commanding the radar to interrogate the IFF transponder on the unidentified aircraft. Nothing. His fingers danced on the keyboard and an overlay of the nearby airway appeared on the scope. The return was definitely not on the airway. His fingers flashed again and numbers appeared on the scope next to the return. The Azanian easily interpreted them: altitude 32,000 feet, speed 300 knots, heading 210 degrees.

  Afraid that he was doing something wrong, he called to the Syrian. The Arab grumbled, got up, and came over to the scope. He pushed the African out of the seat and glanced at the monitor. ‘Stupid,’ he growled. ‘It will miss us by twenty-five miles. See how it will intercept the airway here?’ He jabbed at a point fifteen miles in front of the offending aircraft. ‘It’s an airliner off course.’ He muttered the Arabic equivalent of ‘Stupid black bastard’ and went back to his bed.

  The surveillance operator continued to stare at the target, certain that something was wrong. But he didn’t know what and was afraid to wake the German who was asleep in the back room.

  *

  Only the red glow of the instrument lights cut the darkness on the C-130’s flight deck. ‘Depressurization checklist complete,’ the flight engineer said. Speaking into an oxygen mask gave his words a strained, baffled sound.

  ‘Rog,’ Jake Madison said, his voice sounding much the same. ‘Everyone keep an eye on your buddy. We don’t need anyone going hypoxic up here and passing out. Depressurize the aircraft.’ The flight engineer reached up to the overhead control panel and turned the pressurization switch to vent. A light whooshing sound filled the flight deck as the cabin pressure equalized to the outside altitude.

  ‘Cockpit at thirty-two thousand feet,’ the flight engineer said. ‘We’re depressurized.’

  ‘Oxygen check,’ Madison said. They had never dropped parachutists this high and he was worried about oxygen starvation. The crew checked in by position and the pilot relaxed.

  ‘Three minutes out,’ the navigator called. ‘Slow down.’

  Madison pulled the throttles back; slowing the Hercules to 130 knots indicated airspeed. The noise on the cargo deck was deafening as the jump doors at the rear of the aircraft were opened, the air deflectors extended, and the jump platforms locked into place. T
he jumpmaster turned the red lights down a notch, dimming the light in the cargo compartment even more. But the jumpers could still clearly see him as he took his position between the jump doors. He keyed his personal radio that linked the men together. ‘Prepare to stand!’ he ordered in French.

  The heads of the forty men sitting in the parachute seats, twenty to each side of the aircraft, turned as one to face the jumpmaster, proof that all had heard him and their radios were working. The drill had started and Bouchard felt the inevitable adrenaline rush. He was alive as the commands came in quick succession.

  Then he stepped out of the door, into the starlit night sky. He fell free of the C-130, feeling his body decelerate, losing the forward speed of the aircraft. The sound of the Hercules receded into the night and only the howling wind cut the silence. His team had been briefed to keep radio transmissions to a minimum during the drop and silence carried the message that all was well. He waited for his parachute to deploy automatically when he descended through 30,000 feet.

  The canopy rustled open and broke his free fall with a jerk. Instinctively, he checked his oxygen connection. It was secure and he was not showing any signs of hypoxia. Next, he checked the rectangular, mattress-like canopy above him. He could see the position lights on each side, green on the right and red on the left, which would burn out before he descended through 10,000 feet. He looked down at the GPS, global positioning system, receiver strapped to the top of his emergency parachute.

  The GPS was so precise that he could navigate to within thirty feet of his objective. The glowing LED readout told him he was left of course. He reached for the riser extensions that allowed him to steer the parachute and still keep his arms below his heart, pulled, and turned to the right. Slowly, the course bar on the GPS centered as the miles-to-go counter decreased to twenty.

  Bouchard was hanging under a highly modified version of the FXC Guardian parachute. It was not a parachute in the conventional sense, but a steerable, non-rigid airfoil that had a five-to-one forward glide ratio. By combining the Guardian parachute and GPS, a jumper could glide almost twenty-five miles and land on a pinpoint target. For the jumpers, their main problem was to avoid running into each other on landing. Hopefully, their night vision goggles would help prevent that. If all went as planned, Bouchard was going to land his thirty-nine men inside the Azanian Liberation Army’s headquarters compound in exactly fifty minutes.

  *

  The young Azanian had quit worrying about the airliner when it entered a holding pattern south of Kimberley, eighty miles south of the farmstead. Instead, he tried to make sense of the flickering returns that ghosted across his radar scope. Birds, he decided. But did birds large enough to reflect radar energy fly at night? He didn’t know. He turned the moving target indicator down, trying to get a speed on the slow-moving targets. At first, the radar could not determine it. Finally, he got a readout of twenty-eight miles an hour. Now, he was alarmed and remembered to check the altitude: 12,000 feet. That was definitely too fast and too high for birds. Or was it? He was going to wake the German in the back room when the radar broke lock and, with it, his resolve.

  He checked his new wristwatch: fifteen minutes before two o’clock. Frustrated, he walked outside and looked up, hoping he would see birds flying across the dark sky. Instead, he saw five very faint lights moving across the star-pocked sky. One by one, they disappeared. They are too slow for shooting stars, he reasoned. Was that another one, coming down toward him? It winked out. They had to be shooting stars, he decided.

  What he had mistaken for a meteor shower were the position lights on the parachute canopies burning out as the raiders descended toward the compound. Only his young, and very keen, eyesight had allowed him to pick the lights out against the starlit sky. The Azanian thought for a moment. This was a very strange night. His emotions took over and he started to shake.

  There was no guard to stop him as he ran from the compound.

  *

  Tuesday, April 7

  Ysterplaat Air Base, Cape Town

  *

  Pontowski sat at the commander’s position in the command post. The two controllers on duty had established a no-go zone around him and he was cocooned in a circle of silence. He hated being out of the stream of activity flowing past him but he sensed the wisdom of it. A commander needed time to think and concentrate on the big picture. Accepting it was the problem.

  The master clock on the wall in front of him clicked to 0150 hours local time while the elapsed-time clock below it announced they were two hours and twenty minutes into the operation.

  He breathed easier when the radio squawked. It was Madison with a status report. His copilot passed the information in short blocks while the controllers copied it down, filling in the formatted message form. The senior controller handed Pontowski the completed message form: the airdrop had gone off on schedule. The three helicopters led by van der Roos had landed eighty miles south of the target area, refueled, and taken off. Again, all was proceeding as planned.

  What can go wrong now? Pontowski thought. He considered the possibilities. ‘This sucks,’ he grumbled to himself, standing up. He paced back and forth, feeling the need for action. Don’t second guess them now, he warned himself. Trust your people. Why the doubts? he asked himself. Will it always be like this? The loneliness? The worrying? He knew the answer to the last question as he paced back and forth, alone and safe while his people were in harm’s way.

  *

  Tuesday, April 7

  Near Kimberley, South Africa

  *

  Bouchard spiraled above the compound, his hands working the parachute’s riser extensions as he steered toward the large open area behind the two main barns. He kept the spiral going as he descended and visually swept the large farmstead with his night vision goggles, looking for any signs of activity. No movement. His timing was perfect and at 100 feet above the landing zone, he rolled out of the spiral on to his final approach. He braked the parachute and landed in a standing position. His feet were cold from the long descent and protested in pain.

  Before Bouchard could collapse his parachute, two more raiders were on the ground beside him. By the time he had freed the submachine gun strapped to his side like an overlarge sidearm, two more men were down. He kept counting the shadows as they dropped to the ground, never losing the tally. No commands were given, no signals exchanged, as the shooters formed up into squads of four and moved silently into position.

  At forty-five seconds, Bouchard’s count stood at nineteen. His group was one man short. He waited, counting the seconds. A shadow passed overhead and the last man touched down. It has to be Rogers, the American, he reasoned. He’s always getting lost.

  He checked his watch: thirty-five seconds to go. The last arrival moved into position and Alpha Group was ready. He glanced at his watch, did a mental countdown for the last five seconds, and at exactly two minutes past the hour, keyed his radio with three short clicks. Two clicks answered, telling him the second team of twenty shooters, Bravo Group, was in place and ready to go. Bouchard waited while the second hand swept toward 02.03. He spoke in a low voice. ‘On my count: three, two, one, mark.’ The clock had started.

  The tension that had coiled inside Bouchard like a tightly wound spring found its release in action and he erupted from cover, leading three squads of Alpha Group into the farmstead. The remaining eight men had to secure the landing zone, act as a reserve, and establish radio contact with the helicopters that were inbound. Bouchard slowed and allowed the point man of his squad, Corporal Rogers, to take the lead as the two other squads fanned out. It was an intricate ballet with each step planned to deconflict their movement and fire. And it was all on a strict time schedule.

  The point man for each squad led the way to a preselected target while the backup man brought up the rear, more concerned with what was behind them than where they were going. The low and high men in each squad were sandwiched between and concentrated on clearing their flanks. Rog
ers reached their objective, the radar shack, and paused, mentally counting down. He tested the door handle, surprised to find it unlocked. He signaled his team, carefully opened the door, threw a flash-bang grenade into the room, and closed the door. ‘Cosmic little suckers,’ he mumbled as the grenade exploded, filling the room with a deafening concussion and blinding light.

  Around them, the farmstead erupted in a deafening blast as grenades and gunfire shattered the silence. Rogers threw the door open and fired into the room at an angle, sweeping the half of the room opposite him. Bouchard was crouched on the other side of the door and fired from his angle, clearing the other half of the room. The high man in his team was through the door, firing as he went. He raked the door of the back room with a short burst before kicking it in and clearing that room. ‘All clear,’ he called. Bouchard stepped into the main room. It was a shambles. The radar console was chewed to pieces and smoking, filling the room with the acrid stench of burning insulation. A lone body lay half out of one of the bunks on the back wall. ‘Arab,’ the high man guessed.

  Bouchard walked into the back room and looked around. The bed showed signs of recent occupancy and he wanted to see a body with at least two bullets in its head. Bouchard’s reaction was instinctive, born out of long experience. ‘Out,’ he barked. The urgency in his voice drove the men out of the building and into the dark. Bouchard was the last man out of the radar shack, running for all he was worth. Behind him, the building erupted in a fiery blast that knocked him to the ground.

  ‘Alpha Group,’ he radioed, ‘status.’ His men checked in — all okay. ‘Attention,’ he transmitted, ‘the radar shack was rigged for destruct. ‘Check your areas for demolitions.’

  The men swept their areas and reported finding the communications shack, the motor pool, and the ammunition dump wired for destruction. The attack had been so swift that only the demolitions in the radar shack had been activated. ‘Main house secure,’ the leader of Bravo Group radioed.

  ‘LZ secure,’ another voice said. The eight shooters Bouchard had left behind had cleared the landing zone for the three helicopters.