The short, stocky NCO slipped each picture into the projector, keeping pace as Thorn ticked off the information they revealed. “Both the CIA and the DLA now estimate there are more than four front line infantry divisions closed up and in their final assembly areas near Bandar-e Bushehr. Additional formations, all of them tank and mechanised units, have been spotted moving by rail to Bandar-e Khomeini.”
He watched their reactions closely, pleased to see that every man appeared fully alert and utterly focused. “Even more important than that, KH-12 and LACROSSE radar satellite passes yesterday and early today picked up signs of significant naval movements. First, the Iranians have shut down their regularly scheduled ferry services to the offshore islands. Those ships are now sailing north toward Bushehr. Second, their entire submarine force has left Bandar-e Abbas, apparently heading for the Gulf of Oman. If we needed anything else, the NSA reports that all Iranian army, air, and naval units switched to a new set of codes and ciphers six hours ago.”
The lights came back to full brightness. Thorn stepped forward. “This is not a simple exercise or drill. They’re getting set to go and to go soon.”
Heads nodded in agreement with his assessment. The final pieces of the Iranian operation were falling into place. Switching codes and frequencies was a classic precursor to any significant military move, and no one with any economic sense moved that much shipping around on a whim.
Thorn swept his eyes over the little group of officers and senior sergeants, picking out individuals. Keenly aware that they were looking to him for direction, he kept a tight rein on his expression. Beneath the impassive mask, however, he could feel the old eagerness, the driving urge toward action, welling up inside. He could tell they felt much the same way.
Still, he had no illusions about the dangers involved in the mission ahead. Despite their intensive work over the past several days, NEMESIS was still very much an improvised, pick-up-and-go operation. If the plan started falling apart under the stress of unexpected events, it would be up to the men in this room to pick up the pieces and carry on against all odds and no matter what the cost.
Thorn focused on the commander of the NEMESIS helicopter detachment.
“Your guys ready, Scott?”
Captain Scott Finney, a compact Texan so calm other people often thought he was asleep or dead, nodded. “Yep. No sweat.”
“How about yours, Mack?”
The tall, lanky Air Force lieutenant colonel commanding their C-17 transports shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind making a few more practice runs, Pete, but we can do it without them.”
One by one, the majors and captains commanding the four Delta troops gave him the same answer. No one was very happy about cutting their planned prep time short, but no one was ready to ask for further delay now that the Iranians were poised and ready to attack.
Ordinarily, Thorn did not believe in giving pep talks especially not to men like those in this room. Most were already veterans of half a dozen special operations some of them so secret that only the barest hints had filtered out to the world beyond the Delta Force compound. Still, he wanted to impress on them his absolute conviction that NEMESIS, no matter how difficult and no matter how dangerous, was a mission with purpose a mission with a critical and achievable objective.
“One thing we know from the computer messages we’ve intercepted is that Amir Taleh is a control freak,” Thorn said firmly. “Taleh is the focus of political and military power inside Iran. He runs the Iranian armed forces pretty much as a overman show. All crucial orders pass through his headquarters. His field commanders are highly unlikely to begin an invasion without a clear directive from him personally.
“So our job is essential. If we stop Taleh, we stop this war before it starts. Everything else is secondary. Everything. Understood?”
They nodded solemnly.
“Very well, gentlemen,” Thorn said calmly. “Have your troops saddle up. We move out at 2030 hours, tonight.”
In the Persian Gulf Twenty miles outside Saudi territorial waters, an old wooden chow chugged through calm waters at a steady ten knots, relying on its auxiliary motor for power instead of its furled, lateen-rigged sails. Crates, boxes, and bales of varying sizes crowded the boat’s deck. To all outward appearances, the chow was nothing more than a simple trading vessel one of the hundreds that plied the Gulf on a daily basis. Her crew, too, appeared utterly ordinary: a mix of wiry young lads and weathered old men clad only in Tshirts and shorts against the noonday sun.
Feeling self-conscious in his unaccustomed civilian garb, Lieutenant Kazem Buramand leaned down through the chow’s forward hatch After the dazzling brightness outdoors, the hold below seemed pitch-black. It took several seconds before the Iranian naval officer’s eyes adjusted enough to make out the ten men squatting comfortably around a mound of their own equipment.
All of them wore the camouflage fatigues and green berets of Iran’s Special Forces. Besides their personal weapons, they were equipped with radios, two light machine guns, handheld SA-16 SAMs, demolition charges, directional mines modeled on the American claymore, and antitank mines.
“Is there a problem, Lieutenant?” their leader, a captain, asked softly. Scarred by Iraqi grenade fragments, his narrow face had a permanently sardonic cast that always unnerved Buramand.
“No, sir,” he stammered. “But we are two hours outside Saudi waters. I thought you would like to know.”
“Yes.” The Special Forces officer nodded politely. “Thank you. I assume we have not received any recall order.”
Buramand shook his head. “No, sir. None.”
He had been monitoring the sophisticated communications gear he had brought aboard the chow almost continuously, half expecting to hear the repeated code words that would bring this boat and the others like it scurrying back to port. Instead, he had heard nothing beyond the steady hiss and crackle of static. It was just beginning to dawn on the young naval officer that all their weeks and months of training had been in earnest.
“Very good.” The captain tipped his beret over his eyes, leaned back against his bulky pack, and said quite calmly, “Then please wake me when it gets dark. My men and I will help you prepare the Zodiac rafts for our little trip to the shore.”
The Iranian city of Bandar-e Khomeini lay at the northern end of the Persian Gulf, one hundred and fifty miles north and west of Bushehr. In peacetime it served as an oil terminus. Now its docks were crowded with valuable cargo of quite another kind.
Shrill whistles blew as another heavily loaded freight train rumbled slowly down a spur line and out onto Bandar-e Kliomeini’s largest pier. Although heavy tarpaulins muffled the massive shapes on each flatcar, Brigadier General Sayyed Malaek’s experienced eyes easily made out more of the T-80 tanks and BMP infantry fighting vehicles belonging to his 32nd Armored Brigade.
Everywhere the bearded, hawk-nosed brigadier looked, he saw signs of hurried activity. Out at the end of the long pier, working parties of his own men were busy fueling and arming the vehicles brought down from the Ahvaz Garrison by earlier trains. Dockworkers and sailors scurried among the neat rows of tanks and APCs, guiding those that were ready aboard the waiting ships.
Five vessels were moored at Bandar-e Khomeini. Three were the Navy’s Ropucha-class tank landing ships. Together, they could carry more than seventy of his tanks and six companies of infantry. Two more vessels were car ferries hastily modified to safely lift another company’s worth of the brigade’s vehicles.
Malaek checked his watch and smiled. His troops were well ahead of schedule.
Bushehr Air Base Arc lights strung around the airfield perimeter cast artificial daylight across a scene of frenzied activity.
The first echelons of the SCIMITAR strike force more than fifty advanced combat aircraft were parked in hastily constructed shelters spaced around the Bushehr base. Additional squadrons were moving to full readiness at fields ranging northward in a wide arc from Bandar-e Abbas to Aghajari and Khorramshahr.
Major Ashraf Bakhtiar stood near the revetments assigned to his Su-24 Fencer squadron, carefully overseeing
