“I … I don’t think so, Major.”
“That was the last Sidearm missile—we’re on our own now,” Behrouzi said in Arabic. “That Rapier is your first priority, Lieutenant—be sure you kill that unit right away. Range to shore?”
“Twenty kilometers.”
Behrouzi was silent—and Briggs knew why: they were still several minutes away from being able to attack any of the air defense sites with their Hellfire missiles. The longer range Hawk missile batteries could still track and shoot at them, no matter how low they flew.
Briggs clicked on the radio: “Genesis, this is Redman. The lights are bright in Broadway now. How copy?” No response. “Genesis, this is Redman, anytime now, buddy.” Still no reply. He removed the headset and tossed it aside. “Looks like our angel has flown back to heaven.”
“It was perhaps too much to hope for,” Behrouzi said. On interphone, she asked, “Range to shore, Lieutenant?”
“Eighteen kil-” He was interrupted by the threat warning receiver’s blaring alarm again—it was another Hawk missile site.
Behrouzi looked into Briggs’s eyes, and he could sense her fear—the Hawk was locked on, and there was nowhere to run now.
“Hawk acquisition … Hawk target illuminator …” They then heard the fast, high-pitched deedledeedledeedle! as the threat warning system detected the Hawk missile launch. The speed at which the Hawk system had gone from acquisition to illuminator to missile launch told them that the Hawk had a solid lock-on. The pilot started his evasive maneuvers, but everyone could sense that the maneuvers were sharper, more desperate … there was a second launch warning tone, then a third”
“Missiles in the air! Missiles tracking!” the gunnery officer shouted. “More missiles … I see more missiles in the air!”
One after another, it seemed as if the sky was filling with missiles, and now a few antiaircraft artillery sites opened up far in the distance, like a shower of fireworks. “There are missiles everywhere!” the gunner shouted hysterically. “They are everywhere! They-“
The interphone went dead, and the Bronco’s wild evasive maneuvers were cut short. A terrific explosion shook the Bronco as if a giant hand had slapped it, and there was a tremendous screech, like a man crying in terror … but they were still flying.
Behrouzi tore her headphones off and shouted, “There is a loud squeal in the radios. I cannot hear anything!”
For the first time in what seemed like years, Briggs smiled.
“That’s my angel,” he said. “Good going, Mack.”
It took several minutes for the squealing to subside in the radios and interphone. When she was able to be heard over the persistent side tones, Behrouzi asked the gunner, “What has happened, Lieutenant?”
“Every missile site in Iran opened fire on us all at once,” Junayd replied excitedly, “but all the missiles seemed to fly in every direction but ours. Then some artillery sites opened fire—but they were sweeping the skies erratically. I am still picking up missile tracking, illuminators, and up-link signals, but I see no missiles or gun sites attacking. It was as if they fired all their weapons at once at some large mass of targets overhead …
“That is good, Lieutenant,” Behrouzi said. “Our American commander brought an angel with us on the flight —I hope it stays.
Range to shore?”
“Nine kilometers, Major.”
“Good. Well within Hellfire missile range. Do you have that Rapier site yet?”
“Major, please, I’m doing the best … wait … target identified!” the weapons officer cried out suddenly. “I see it!”
“Be sure it’s not a decoy, Lieutenant.”
“I see the Sidearm impact point—the Sidearm hit a wall right in front of the unit and missed by just a few meters. Locked on!”
“Well, kill it, then, pilot, don’t just narrate,” Behrouzi screamed up to the pilot—the pilot of a Bronco controlled the attack missiles, while the weapons officer controlled the Gatling gun. Just then, the commandos heard a loud, sustained fwoooshhh!
as the first Hellfire missile left its launch tube, followed by a second launch a few seconds later. In this engagement, since the range of a Hellfire and a Rapier were almost the same, the first one to fire would probably be the winner—and Behrouzi’s crew won.
“Target destroyed!” Junayd shouted. “Target destroyed!”
“Very good,” Behrouzi said. “Be on the lookout for antiaircraft artillery sites, but it’s rare to find antiaircraft artillery units active on a naval installation.
“Now I want a careful surveillance of the facility, looking for any evidence of where those captives might be held,” Behrouzi went on. “You have the diagram of the security headquarters, correct, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Major,” the weapons officer replied. “Our navigation coordinates are programmed for the detention facility, which is right next to the base hospital. We’ll look there first.”
“The longer you take, the less fuel you’ll have for your return flight, Lieutenant,” Behrouzi reminded the cockpit crew in an almost humorous tone.
“I understand … I have the hospital … I see the detention facility. It appears to be dark inside, Major—no sign of occupation. I see only a few lights on in the ground-floor security headquarters. The building appears deserted, no perimeter lights on in the detention facility, no vehicles outside. The hospital looks as if it is fully staffed.”
Behrouzi turned to Briggs and said in English, “You must decide, Leopard,” she said. “The crew says the detention facility appears deserted—no lights, no sign of activity. The hospital appears to be fully staffed. Shall we try?”
“The detention facility,” Briggs said immediately. “We may have only one chance at this.”
“I was in the security business for ten years,” Briggs said resolutely. “Prisoners always go to the secure facility. If they’re hurt and you’re going to treat them, you bring the doctors into the facility, not take prisoners out to an unsecure area.
And I never allowed anyone to park outside my secure areas—too easy to hot-wire a car and blow through a gate, or set booby traps, or take cover during a raid. We go in the detention area, inside the perimeter fence. Directly on the rooftop if possible.”
“Very well, Leopard,” Behrouzi said, her smile showing that she was pleased with his resolve. She pulled out her chart of the Chah Bahar Naval Base and, in Arabic and English, briefed their intended target, then ordered her three commandos to get ready.
The Bronco pilot made a high-speed approach from the seaward side of the base at very low altitude.
The weapons officer designated targets for the Hellfire missiles, identifying occupied buildings that looked as though they were headquarters buildings or communications centers, and at the same time took shots with the Gatling gun at every power transformer, large vehicle, fuel-storage tank, or anything else that he thought might disrupt things down on the base and cover their activities.
The last run was at the security headquarters, which was the lower floor of the security and detention building. They shot Hellfires at the spots where they knew important rooms were located—the communications stations, the armories, the power transformers—and shot out yard lights and any lighted doorways with the 20- millimeter Gatling gun.
“I see a long strip of cloth tied to the outside of a window on the second floor,” Junayd yelled back to the cargo bay.
“Does it form a letter?” Briggs shouted back. “A letter in the Roman alphabet?”
“Yes,” Junayd replied, using maximum power on his FLIR targeting scope. “It forms the letter M.”
“That’s one of our guys,” Briggs said, smiling broadly for the first time. “Madcap Magician. They’re down there. Let’s get ready!”
The weapons officer Junayd saved two Hellfires to blow big holes in the side of the security headquarters. About 600 yards from the building itself, the pilot started a hard climb, so he was directly over the detention facility at the crest of the climb at 600 feet. At that point, the five commandos in the Bronco’s cargo section made their
