The sun rose hot and burning over the hard desert.
The night had passed without incident in the cave. The Marines had dispensed a battery of motion detectors all over the flattened cliff as well as hanging many over the side of the mountain itself. Two squads of Marines had spent the night out on the ledge. Well hidden in their unmarked, Iraqi-style camouflage uniforms, they had set up powerful NightScopes, one pointing in just about every direction possible from the cliff's location. The combination of the motion detectors and the NightScopes gave them eyes and ears that extended out for miles.
About a half mile from the base of the mountain, there was a highway that ran east to west. It was known to be little traveled, and true to form, not a single vehicle was seen on the roadway all night. In fact the unit's electronic picket line had detected no movements—other than nocturnal animals—anywhere near the hiding spot.
By 0500, Norton and Delaney were ready to go.
The air techs had worked all night getting the Hinds in shape to do the first recon flight. Most of the long hours were spent extracting sand from critical systems. Norton and Delaney did their own extensive preflight inspection as well. Their weapons check went well, as did a communications test. Everything seemed to be in order aboard the tough Russian gunships.
They could only pray it would stay that way.
*****
The Hinds were finally pushed out of the cave and into the dim sunlight at 0530 hours.
There was still an hour before sunrise. A sweep of the area proved their position had still not been compromised. The picket line of Marines on the cliff's edge reported no activity in evidence, no traffic on the road to their south. Nothing flying anywhere overhead.
Norton and Delaney started their engines. The Russian choppers responded with the usual bang and storm of fire and smoke. But within seconds, the big rotors began turning, and soon were whirring with unbridled Russian efficiency.
They took off cleanly. Using extra power and the hard sand in front of the cave as their runway, they were up and away in less than 250 feet. The pair of Hinds immediately climbed up to five hundred feet and turned northwest. The first of what would probably be many recon flights was under way at last.
The desert now spread before them like a vast, golden vista. Norton had seen it before, of course. Nearly ten years ago, during Desert Storm, he'd flown over some of this same landscape. It was flat hard terrain in this region mostly, interspersed with rugged low hills. Moonlike. Desolate. Beautiful in the oddest way.
They flew northeast, following a course suggested to them by Smitz's CIA bosses. They passed over a few scattered villages, some goat herds, some wheat fields, the occasional roadway. It was still very early in the morning, and very few people could be seen about. Those that did see the choppers had no noticeable reaction, even though flying as low as they were, the racket they were making must have been unbearable. Maybe this was what the people had come to expect from the Iraqi military. Waking up early to the sound of helicopter gunships was the least of their problems.
The open spaces and the sparseness of the land aided Norton and Delaney greatly in preserving their cover. And again, their disguise was simple. The sight of two Hinds roaring through the sky at sunrise was nothing new to anyone who spotted them from the ground.
Just as long as they acted like they were Iraqis, they would stay out of trouble.
*****
They flew for forty minutes. Hugging the contours of the earth, following the flight plan, Delaney was leading the way, Norton off his wing.
Over the lowest of the Bala Ruz Mountains, between the Tariq-sum Hills, up and along the A1 Vzayn River, skirting the edge of Baghdad's suburbs, and then moving northeast towards the Divala River basin.
It was odd, because it would have seemed that in a combat-imminent situation, one's mind would be focused to the max. But this morning, for whatever reason, Norton’s thoughts began to wander.
What would happen if he and Delaney returned to the cave after this recon to find their position had been compromised and everyone butchered? A grisly thought, Norton told himself. Almost too grisly to enter his mind. Besides, if they had been compromised, wouldn't they have been intercepted by now? Or would they find Fulcrums waiting for them when they returned to the hiding spot?
How about the gunship's original crew? What were the chances that they'd all survived ten years of captivity? Would they be like Buchenwald prisoners when they were finally freed? Would they be insane? Brainwashed? Would their families still be waiting for them? Would they be heroes once they got home? Would they be hounded by the press? Asked to write books? Do the talk show circuit? Make movie deals?
Norton blinked, and suddenly he was inside the accursed Tin Can simulator again. In all those hours of training he never did figure out a way to nail the
T-72 tank before the Fulcrums—or the SAMs or the AAA guns—nailed him. Maybe that was the reasoning behind the simulator training after all. Maybe that was a problem that just
couldn’t
be solved. Maybe he was actually on a suicide mission here, just another piece of fodder given up so the U.S. military could get back something it should never have lost in the first place.
Maybe, he was just a damn . . .
"
Jazz!
Jazz? You awake, man?"
Norton's headphones were suddenly filled with the sound of Delaney's very excited voice. He hit his silent-scramble-mode key and responded.
"I'm here . . . what's up?"
"What's up?" Delaney came back. "Open your eyes, man. Dead ahead."
Norton shook the last of his morbid thoughts away and took Delaney's advice. His jaw dropped.
"Damn. Will you look at that . . ."
About five miles straight ahead was exactly what they were looking for. The shadow-filled valley. The prison building. The smoke-belching factory. The high, sharp-peaked mountains. Everything. It was the Ranch, just as it had been presented to them.
And sitting out on the highway that doubled as the runway was the ArcLight gunship. It was partially covered in tarpaulin, but Norton could see its elongated nose and its extra-wide fuselage poking out of the covering. Figures could be seen moving around the airplane and at various points on the base itself. The suspected AA guns and SAM sites were in evidence. There was even a T-72 battle tank sitting alongside the asphalt roadway.
"We just hit a home run," Delaney was telling him through his headphones. "On our first at bat!"
Norton was so surprised by their sudden luck, he yanked back the throttles and slowed down a bit to take a better look. It had been almost too easy, but there was no denying that the CIA's directions had brought them precisely to where they wanted to be. All the pieces fit. The buildings. The runway. The mountains. The billows of black from the factory smokestacks. And best of all, there was the gunship, sitting so fat and pretty, Norton felt he could reach out and touch it.
"Damn," he said again. "This
must
be the place."
*****
Smitz was checking his NoteBook when he got word that the Hinds were returning.
He alerted Chou, and quickly a dozen Marines began clearing the opening to the cave. It was now 0830 hours, and the sun was up and visibility extremely clear. Getting the Hinds out of sight would be their number-one priority.
The two gunships came in for bumpy landings. No sooner had they stopped rolling when the air techs flooded out of the cave and began pushing them towards the opening.
Because of the Hinds' long, low still-turning rotors, many of the techs had to lie down and push the choppers' big wheels by hand. But finally the rotors stopped turning and both aircraft were pushed completely inside. The cave opening's covering was put back in place. A check with the perimeter men confirmed that the landing and recovery had gone unnoticed.
Norton was out of his Hind even before the cave opening was sealed off. Smitz and Chou were waiting for him.
"We found the place," he exclaimed to them. "First time. Just like that."
Delaney was right beside him. "It was just where they said it would be. Right on the fucking money."
"Damn, really?" Smitz breathed.
"Your office got the number of blades of grass right. And the ArcLight is there. Ripe for the picking."
Smitz was having trouble absorbing the news. No way did he expect the timetable to be moving this fast.
"Either my office is getting real good, real quick," he muttered, "or we're just the luckiest bastards on God's Earth."
"Either way," Delaney said, "we know where the place is. And the gunship is on the ground. I say we get our asses in gear and do this thing right now—so we can get the fuck out of here."
Smitz bit his lip. There was nothing in the plan that said they couldn't move fast once the target was established. But
this
fast? After everyone assumed that finding the hidden base would take more than just one recon flight?
He had to think for a moment. His stomach was getting tight—a sign sometimes that all was not right. What should he do? Should he send a scramble-burst message back to his bosses and tell them what had happened? Ask for further orders? Or would this just waste time? The forte of the unit was they were supposed to be autonomous. They were supposed to be able to think on their feet, take advantage of any situation.
But he was also under orders to report extraordinary events back to the office, both good or bad. Did an incredible stroke of good luck qualify as "extraordinary"?
"Fuck it, Smitty," Delaney cursed, reading his thoughts. "Don't call those assholes back in Washington. They'll just fuck it up. Let's just do it. Before we think too much about it. Besides, I got some shit to do back home."
Smitz looked up at Norton. His rock of good judgment. Surprisingly, Norton was smiling.
"You heard the man," Norton said, indicating Delaney. "He's got 'some shit to do.' "
Gillis and Ricco were now standing nearby as well. They were nodding in agreement. So were Chou and the Army pilots.
Smitz slammed his NoteBook shut and turned off the power.
"OK, screw it," he said finally. "Let's go."
They came out of the sun, like a thunderstorm of fire and burning metal.
Red tracers. Streaks of flame. Blinding yellow explosions. Palls of smoke rising in seconds. The noise, the screech of engines. Deafening enough to puncture eardrums, enough to make them bleed. Every sound of combat could be heard now—except the screams.
Norton had gone in first. His Hind's gigantic nose cannon was pumping out its enormous shells as soon as he came over the top of the mountain. His first target, of course, was the T-72 battle tank sitting astride the fake highway. There was no simulated nightmare here. He threw more than thirty high-explosive shells into the mammoth tank, and it blew apart like a kid's toy.
Next, he looped up and took out the first suspected AA gun emplacement, the one on the ledge about two thirds of the way up the south mountain wall. This took fifteen of the big shells before exploding in a ball of fire and dust. What Norton believed was a SAM site located on the west mountain wall appeared in his targeting circle next. He let his wing guns take care of this potential threat, shredding it with a five-second twin burst.
Another quick turn and he was firing at the second suspected AA site. Three seconds from his side guns and it was vaporized. Another 90-degree turn, another pair of five-second bursts, another suspected SAM site reduced to twisted metal and flaming embers.
Just like that, his first strafing run was over. He'd taken out the tank, two AA gun sites, and a pair of SAMs in less than thirty seconds. Without getting so much as a ding on his aircraft.
And not a Fulcrum in sight.
Delaney was now on his tail. They turned as one and like two World War One Spads, they swept over the hidden base, back and forth, firing their massive guns and hitting everything but the building where the prisoners were thought to be kept.
Norton was screaming at the top of his lungs now—an involuntary quirk of combat he'd picked up in Desert Storm. He was shooting at anything and everything he thought looked target-worthy. The gaggle of metal and wires on a perch overlooking the factory. Was it another AA gun or some kind of weather station? No matter. It was gone in a three-second burst. That glint of white plastic sitting on a trailer with four wheels near the roadside. Was it a mobile SAM launcher or a satellite dish in disguise? It made no difference. A barrage of missiles from his wing pylons and the thing was gone.
That garage, at one end of a narrow street. Could there be another T-72 hiding inside? Again, it didn't really matter. A ten-second burst from the monster nose cannon and the place was left a pile of smoking debris.
Delaney was making it his job to decimate the smoking factory. His chopper was buzzing around the substantial three-stack structure, pouring cannon fire and missiles into every part of it. Secondary explosions were going off all over the building, indicating flammable materials were inside. Soon there was more smoke smothering the area as a result of Delaney's handiwork than there was originally from the factory's smoke screen.
The combined Hind attack lasted no more than three minutes. It was so sudden and so determined and extensive, not a single shot was fired back at them. And so far the two targets they wanted untouched—the Ranch house and the covered aircraft—hadn't received so much as a scratch.
With much excitement then, Norton sent a message to the other three choppers loitering just over the mountains.
"Come on in," he told them. "The water's fine."
*****
The trio of big choppers arrived over the scene not a minute later.
They found themselves looking down on the swath of destruction Norton and Delaney had caused with their huge Russian choppers. There was smoke and fire everywhere, as if the place had been carpet-bombed. Confusion itself seemed to be rising up into the winds.
Norton and Delaney went sweeping up and down the hidden valley again, firing their guns almost randomly as the first of the two Marine-laden Halos came in and touched down in a perfect three-point landing.
The huge chopper landed about 150 feet away from the Ranch house. As soon as it was down, the Marines began pouring out—just as they had practiced.
"Truck One down and clear," came the message in Norton's headphone. "Join the party, Hound Dogs!"
That was all Norton had to hear. He put the big Hind on its tail, did an almost impossible 180-degree loop, and with some twisting and turning, brought the chopper in for a bumpy, neck-wrenching landing. Delaney bounced in right on his tail, nearly colliding with him in the process. Only a last-second swerve by Norton prevented a catastrophic collision.
Predictably, Delaney was up and out of his cockpit even before the Hind stopped rolling. He nearly decapitated himself with his hasty exit, but jacked up as he was on adrenaline, not even the still-spinning razor-sharp rotor could interfere with what he wanted to do next.
Norton exited his own aircraft quickly as well. Delaney was positively on fire when he ran up to him. Somehow he'd gotten a hold of two M-16's.
"C'mon, Jazz!" he yelled, throwing one rifle to Norton. "Show time! Let's do it!"
Delaney began running towards the Ranch house. The Marines were still pouring out of the nearby Truck One. There was much shouting in the air. The sound of gunfire crackled all around them.
Norton started running too. He and Delaney were about one hundred yards from the prison building. Between them and their goal stood the T-72 tank, smoking heavily. They ran past it—but then Norton suddenly skidded to a stop.
"Wait a second, Slick!" he yelled to Delaney.
Delaney put on the brakes so fast he nearly fell on his ass.
"What?"
he yelled back to Norton.
But Norton was already climbing up onto the burning tank.
"Jeesuz, Jazz!" Delaney screamed at him. "What the fuck are you doing? That thing could blow at any second and ..."
But Norton was not listening to him. He was burning the tips of his fingers trying to pry open the tank's turret hatch. It took a few massive pulls but finally the thing sprang free. Norton had the presence of mind to stick the snout of his M-16 into the hatchway and fire off half a clip. He didn't want to meet anyone on the inside coming out. But all he could hear was his bullet rounds clanging off the sides of the crew compartment.
Finally he stopped firing. Then he leaned down and looked inside the tank.
It was empty.
It was as if time stood still for an instant.
Empty?
The word rolled around in his mind a few million times inside one heartbeat.
Why would it be empty?
The big Hook roared over, very low, Ricco gunning his engines as he passed above the little scene on the tank. The tanker pilots carried a small but workable radarscope in their cockpit. If any enemy aircraft were coming their way, the plan called for them to send out a flare barrage as a warning. Jazz could see no flares now, thank God. No—Ricco's loud revving of the big chopper's engines was meant to be another kind of message: The tanker pilots were telling Norton to get his ass in gear, don't waste time fucking with a burning tank.
Get on with it!
Delaney was down below him now, trying to scream the same thing up at Norton through the din.
"Jeesu! Jazz, get the fuck off there! C'mon!"
Norton finally did jump down, but he was still in a slight daze.
"Empty," he said aloud. "That tank was empty."
Delaney stopped for a moment too; he also had to think about it.
"Well, maybe the crew got out, you know, before you nailed it," was his only explanation.
"Yeah, maybe," Norton said.
The roar of an explosion going off behind them knocked both pilots back into reality. It sounded like an atom bomb being detonated.
"Gawd! What the fuck was that?" Delaney yelled as they both hit the ground.
They looked towards the Ranch House building to see indeed a small mushroom cloud rising above the front gate. The Marines had just blown the huge metal door leading to the place off its hinges. Now they were surging inside—again, just the way they'd rehearsed. Guns up and firing, flash grenades going off everywhere.
"Damn, these guys don't fuck around!" Delaney yelled, getting back to his feet. "It's time to rock and roll!"
Next thing he knew, Norton was running again. Rifle up, helmet clanging against his head, he was running faster than he'd run since he was a kid. Delaney was right in front of him, firing his M-16 into the air, adding to the cacophony of gunfire all around them. Another huge explosion went off, this one on the far side of the prison building. More flash grenades exploded. They were so bright and Norton was getting so close to the objective, they were partially blinding him.
But he was running even faster now. Spit coming from his mouth, a strange guttural laugh coming from his throat.
Damn, this
was
rock and roll. . . .
He was suddenly aware of two people running right beside him. It was one of the SEAL doctors and Team 66’s videographer. The doctor was carrying his medical bag the way a running back would carry a football. The video guy was hauling his camera as if it was a weapon of some kind.
"Stick close to me, Doc!" Norton yelled out for no reason other than the excitement of the moment.
"Yeah, sure!" the SEAL yelled back.
They all reached the front of the building at the same time. The door was still hot and searing where the Marines had blown it off. The inside of the building was thick with smoke. Marines were swarming all over the place, like an army of ants. Through the haze, Norton could see one huge open room. Many bunks were lined against one wall—just like back at Seven Ghosts Key. A string of flash grenades went off, blinding him again. There seemed to be a lot of trash on the floor, but he could not make out exactly what it all was. One thing looked like a smashed TV—but he was probably mistaken. All this trash had to be something else. He stepped over the debris and kept moving deeper into the building.
More smoke. More fire. A flash grenade still burning in one corner. Gun shots from the far end of the building. Shouting over the din. More flash grenades. More blinding explosions. . .
And then, suddenly, everything just stopped. All the shooting. All the shouting. The sound of angry footsteps, boots hitting the concrete floor.
Everything stopped. . . .
"Company, hold fast!" Norton heard Chou yell from somewhere inside the cloud of smoke. "Secure positions. Cease firing!"
The calm that settled on the building came so quickly, it was almost frightening. In seconds, all that could be heard was the crackling of flames and the whistle of the wind outside.
Then came the voices. Not yelling. Not the cries of excitement of men in battle.
No—these were gasps, curse words of disbelief. The voices of men in the process of grisly discovery.
"Doc! Up here!" they heard someone shout. The SEAL doctor began moving through the haze, Norton on his tail, Delaney close behind. They reached a small open area about halfway down the length of the barracks. There they saw a very disturbing sight.
Lined up side by side on the barracks' floor were nine bodies. Facedown, hands at their sides. They were arranged in such an orderly fashion, it was obvious someone took a bit of time to do it properly.
They were Americans. They were all wearing plain gray flight suits that were about ten years out of date. All still had their names sewn on them. One of Chou's men was doing a quick check, but there was no doubt who these people were. They were the DIA and Special Forces guys assigned to the ArcLight gunship.
Each one had a bullet in the back of his head.
*****
Smitz was hanging out of the side window of Truck Two, out of breath, sweaty, and getting dizzy.
Something was wrong here, he just knew it.
There were circling the ArcLight gunship. The smoke from the battle going on inside the prison compound was obscuring his vision, even though they were just a few hundred feet above the airplane.
The Marines inside the giant Halo were chomping at the bit to land and get on with the mission, but the Army chopper pilots were playing it by the book: They would not land unless they were sure the area was secured. But with the swirling sand and smoke, it was impossible to see if any opposition was waiting for them on the ground. The Hinds would have taken out any AA and the SAMs, but what about the regular grunts that might be guarding this place?
Try as he might, Smitz could not see any potential enemy soldiers anywhere near the runway or the airplane. Of course there were only a few thousand places they could be hiding.
Finally Smitz had to make a decision. He crawled up to the copter's cockpit and tapped the pilot on the shoulder.
"Bring her down!" he yelled. "We've got to go in now."
"The LZ is not secure," the pilot said back. "The orders were for us not
to . . ."
Smitz had no time for it. He wasn't questioning the Army pilot's courage—the guy was just doing what he was supposed to in these cases. But Smitz was throwing away the book, or at least ripping a few pages out of it.