rocky. It wouldn’t take much to eliminate their footprints.”
Rahim rubbed his hand through his hair; the enemy had been wounded, but they had also disappeared right before their eyes. Again.
“So, what you’re telling me is that we’ve lost them?”
“It would seem so,” conceded Seddigh.
The airfield lay almost in sight of their hideout, but everyone, even Ramey, agreed that they had to get some sleep. After a small meal, the three ambulatory SEALs each took an hour of lookout duty while everyone else slept. It wasn’t completely refreshing, but Jerry had heard enough stories about SEAL training to know it would help.
Jerry asked to stand watch as well, but Ramey turned him down without explanation. Given their fatigue and frayed nerves, he didn’t push it.
After they’d rested, Ramey helped him prepare for their reconnaissance. In addition to leaving their packs behind, the SEAL lieutenant had Jerry take off anything that reflected light, and double-checked Jerry’s tactical vest for items that might make noise. As they prepared, he drilled Jerry on patrol techniques. “Watch me. When I crouch, you crouch. If I drop to the ground, you drop. Don’t wait for me to tell you, sir.”
“Understood, Boss,” Jerry answered. There was no warmth in Ramey’s tone, but that was okay, because this was business. He was in his element, and the lieutenant was indeed “Boss” for this patrol.
Jerry knew that Ramey didn’t really want him along, but he needed to get a pilot’s eyes on the airfield. They couldn’t make a plan without it.
Ramey was especially cautious leaving the layup. While getting spotted at any time would be disastrous, being seen now would reveal everyone’s position, and with Lapointe wounded, it would be almost impossible to escape pursuit.
The lieutenant moved slowly, and Jerry did his best to copy his movements, even stepping where the lieutenant stepped whenever possible. They hugged the line of trees and bushes for as long as they could.
Just east of the copse was a small farm, with cultivated fields just turning green with new crops. They moved to the north, bypassing scattered buildings, some looking abandoned, others occupied.
Jerry spent a lot of time on his stomach behind trees or low brush. When they crossed open ground, they sprinted, but only after Ramey was convinced the coast was clear. Twice they had to detour around farmers out in their fields. They crawled, climbed, and dashed from cover to cover. Finally, Ramey found a dried-out streambed that wandered through trees up to Highway 96. Although he was in good shape, Jerry was almost breathless when they reached their goal some four kilometers away.
Luckily, they didn’t have to go all the way to the airfield. There was a rise to the west that provided enough cover, as long as they low-crawled their way to the top. The hill not only saved them some time, but as far as Jerry was concerned, the only decent way to look at an airfield was from above.
They’d studied the satellite photos so often he knew it as well as the field at Pensacola, where he’d learned to fly. This one was a lot smaller, though. A single strip, twenty-seven-hundred-meters long, it ran almost straight east-west. There was a single taxiway from near the middle of the runway to a wide apron where aircraft parked, and sure enough, he could see a pair of Falcon 20 jets, their white paint almost sparkling in the sunshine. Other aircraft, a mix of helicopters and what looked like civilian light aircraft were parked to either side. He looked for the fueling arrangements, and spotted several fuel trucks parked by an admin or maintenance building. The control tower was a three-story affair, with few antennas on its roof. There was no sign of traffic control radar or instrument landing aids. Of course, the weather here was usually clear.
Ramey, using his own glasses, gently nudged Jerry’s shoulder and said softly, “XO, look about ten o’clock, near this end of the runway.”
Jerry hadn’t paid much attention to the runway itself. Looking to the left, at the near end, he saw an earthen mound, then spotted a ring of sandbags on top. Inside, a pair of soldiers was working with some sort of heavy weapon on a tripod.
“That’s a DShK heavy machine gun,” Ramey told him. “It’s like our.50 caliber.” Jerry felt his body go cold. Ramey continued, “This complicates things, but we can cope. While you’re getting the plane ready, I go over with a knife and slit their throats, just like in the movies.”
Jerry started checking other parts of the airfield. “Ahh, it looks like they’re setting up a machine gun at the other end of the runway, too. These weren’t on the overhead imagery we saw. This is recent. This is today.” Jerry could see where they were still carrying sandbags to the top of the mound.
“Okaaay,” Ramey answered. “So I get one, and Philly gets the other. That leaves Harry and you to carry Lapointe. Maybe Shirin carries one end so Harry’s free to move. We can make this work.” He paused. “Or maybe not. Look next to the hangar. In the shadow.”
One large hangar dominated the cluster of buildings that lay on the south side of the runway. It was big enough to take a small commercial airliner, although they couldn’t see what was inside. Parked in the shade, probably to avoid the sun as much as for concealment, were a pair of armored vehicles. Each had a flat top that led to an angled front, and a small circular turret with a gun barrel sat in the middle.
“Those aren’t tanks, are they?” Jerry asked.
“They’re armored personnel carriers, some variant of a Russian BMP. The gun on top is a 73mm. It’s not as big as a tank gun, but bad enough. They each carry half a squad of infantry.”
“Okay, so we use a Cormorant to take out the heavy stuff and distract them while we steal the plane,” Jerry suggested.
“No good,” Ramey argued. “Once that UAV starts shooting, we can give up sneaking onto the field. They’ll go to general quarters and we’re out of luck. Let’s go around and look from a different angle.”
They worked their way farther east. This entailed another half hour of creeping and dashing, then low- crawling up another hill. Now more concerned with the airfield than the aircraft, Jerry spotted trouble the instant he used his binoculars. “I see more BMPs,” Jerry reported. He almost pointed, but remembered in time to stay low.
“I see them, too,” Ramey answered. “The rest of a platoon, five altogether.”
“And there will be troops for them, as well,” Jerry concluded.
“Oh, yeah, probably setting up more emplacements all over the airfield. They’ll use the vehicles as strongpoints.” The SEAL lieutenant backed down away from his position, then rolled onto his back.
“Do the math. We took out a squad last night. This morning the airfield is alive with troops. Maybe they’re afraid we might try to steal a plane.”
“Not anymore we’re not,” Jerry answered.
“Never say die, XO. Let’s keep looking.”
Rahim and the others had managed to find a meal, but had returned to find no news. It really was too soon to expect any developments. But he was impatient, and set Dahghan and Sattari to work calling every barracks and headquarters between Kangan and Lengeh to make sure there was no new information. He’d learned the hard way. He wouldn’t wait for them to report.
Overflowing with nervous energy, he started to organize the chaos they’d left behind. As he sorted through the documents, he found one pile laid to the side, from the Pasdaran Navy headquarters. “Did either of you see these?”
Dahghan shook his head. “No, Major.”
They were reports from last night. None of the boats had seen any hostile vessels, of course. There were reports of a distress flare being fired, and extra boats had been called in. They’d searched the area between the Farur and Lesser Tunb Islands, starting at 2045 hours, but no further signals were received, either visually or by radio. Because of the darkness, aircraft had not been used.
That was close to where the second squad had been wiped out last night. The timing was also about right. Had the fugitives found a boat and escaped to the sea? But the patrols hadn’t found anything. And if they had been on a boat, why would they attract attention by firing flares into the air?
