The geostrategic implications were strikingly clear to Starchinov. It was a game of dominos. His poputchik would strike the West's poputchik states, which included those, like Syria or Jordan, that claimed nonalignment. Once they were destroyed or had capitulated, it would be the Persian giant's turn to feel the lash. Apart from control of vital oil reserves, the threat posed by the Islamist and ethnic rebels in Iran would be quelled. Russia would emerge stronger than before, a true superpower once again.
Then it could press outward, along its northeastern flanks. Once the borders to the south were sealed, those on the Baltic would fall between the crosshairs. And after these were brought back into the Soviet orbit as satellites…
An aide interrupted the premier's apocalyptic musings. Important visitors from the intelligence services and GRU had just arrived. They were to advise Starchinov of breaking developments in the Mideast.
Starchinov gave instructions to permit them entry, then positioned himself at his desk, looking downward. When they entered he would make them wait for long minutes while he appeared to busy himself with paperwork. It was a technique that had worked well for Stalin, and one that the current Soviet leader had perfected to a theatrical art.
Northeastern Jordan was a cold stone's throw from nowhere. The hyperbole was a bodyguard for truth in this case. Strictest secrecy prevailed in the establishment and logistical considerations for the Sand Viper headquarters.
A joint staff comprised of a Western contingent of American, British and French officers on the one hand, and a Mideast contingent of Syrian, Israeli and Hashemite Jordanian officers on the other, could only be brought together under the tightest security conditions imaginable.
The groundwork for Sand Viper had been laid during and in the aftermath of the funeral of King Hussein of Jordan. As crowds in Amman lamented the death of the king, the Western nations and other Arab states had stood alert to challenges, especially from the direction of Baghdad and Tehran, to the young King Abdullah's reign.
At the same time, Abdullah, who was a career military officer, was seen to be receptive to the West and secret protocols were established for military intervention if necessary. Abdullah well knew that his chief adversary at the time was Saddam Hussein who had reigned with a dictator's iron fist over a country many times his country's size and not very distant.
And so secret bases were established in the desert against the day when Iraq might grow strong again and prepare to once more attack its neighbors. They had played their roles in the War in Iraq and would now serve similar purposes in conflict with Iran. Intelligence assessments of Tehran's growing might and the superior weaponry they were receiving from Soviet sources were made available to Abdullah. The young king recognized the significance immediately. Orders were given to make the bases available for immediate occupation.
Colonel Stone Breaux, leader of Detachment Omega, under the command of General "Patient K." Kullimore, arrived soon after the base was prepared. Along with him came a contingent of staff personnel. Breaux, who would command special operations field initiatives, would set up shop and participate in planning sessions.
Soon the rest of SFOD-O would follow the advance cadre. To the American special operations team would fall the task of training and organizing the coalition of commando warriors who would wage a series of crippling ground strikes against the forces being built up by Iran's military. Operation Sand Viper slowly uncoiled, but would soon bare its fangs.
Chapter Fifteen
Somewhere below them, as they flew above Wadi Ar'ar, some of the aircrew caught a glimpse of the lines of overhead communications cables, petroleum conduits and four-lane blacktop that ran northwest-southeast along the eastern Saudi Arabian border between Jordan and the Persian Gulf.
This was the Tapline Road, built by the major international oil companies in the 1950s to service their oil pipeline stretching from the Gulf to the Med and intersecting Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, where it terminated a few miles south of Beirut.
A few miles east of the Tapline, sand berms cut across the ochre desert, roughly and intermittently paralleling the highway for several miles. The berms, the rusting and sand-scoured wreckage of military vehicles destroyed some decades before, and the numerous unmarked graves that none aboard the helos could see from even this low altitude, were all signposts marking the sortie's crossborder entrance into Iran.
There were military outposts, border and road checkpoints, sun-baked villages and encampments of Bedouin nomads to be found here too. There were also the invisible Doppler waves of ground tracking radars and the radars of SAM sites, including Roland and SA-10 (S-300) SAM batteries, to contend with.
The sector of the Iranian desert was remote from the more populated quarter closer to Tehran, but the overflight still presented a great danger of discovery to the airborne mission.
Those that had planned the mission — those at Drop Forge, the forward operation center in Jordan, as well as those in a vaulted room within the labyrinth of the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon — were aware of the threats and had tried to level the playing field somewhat.
For weeks prior to the mission, the borderlands separating Iran politically but not geographically from Iraq, Kuwait and the Arabian Peninsula became the focus of planned incursions by ground and airborne forces.
Planes and helicopters would dart across the border, electronically tickle Iranian tripwire forces, and then dart back, having orders not to engage unless fired upon.
Ground radar and SAM sites underneath the no-fly-zone's umbrella were also baited in this way. Ferret aircraft, including the RC-135(X) Cobra Eye, subjected cross-border radar stations and military listening posts to a barrage of electronic warfare attacks.
The stage-managed confusion was the prelude to tonight's two-pronged mission. The Iranian military, who were as sophisticated as any other Middle Eastern nation's, and more so than some, knew that something was in the offing, but they didn't know what, how or when it would hit.
As long as they were kept off-balance, the mission had a good chance of success. The confusion, exploited to the maximum, was crowned by cruise missile strikes against targets outside Tehran, the flashes of which were visible on the horizon as the sortie out of Saudi stole across the enemy's homeland.
The aircrew flew its inbound course in three dimensions. It not only navigated by terrain features, but dodged and jinked and slipped between the unseen feelers of microwaves, exploiting the open seams where radar coverage failed to tightly overlap.
Like microscopic parasites weaving between the scales of a sleeping shark, the three helicopter gun ships flew their treacherous inbound course, first making use of the Wadi Ar'Ar to keep their hulls beneath the level of the ground, and then changing altitude and direction across the open desert beyond the wadi.
The Marine Corps' AH-1Z Vipers were loaded for bear. The weapons complement included HARM anti-radar missiles, Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles (deployable in dual air-to-air and air-to-ground modes), dispenser-launched Zuni rockets with Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) upgrade target acquisition capabilities and a few thousand rounds of 20-millimeter ammo for the nose cannons that were slaved to the head movements of their pilots, deadly swiveling drones that could spit out automatic fire at hundreds of rounds a minute.