Being far smaller in size than the mission's primary objective, the presidential palace at Mashdad, the Kermanshah installation was accorded a correspondingly smaller takedown force. An assortment of low-rise cinderblock buildings and Quonset huts was scattered across a bulldozed stretch of desert about the size of two city blocks. This was Kermanshah.
The facility was encircled by a twenty-foot high hurricane fence generously topped by coils of razor wire. It was either manned by a detachment of specialist Takavar or Pasdaran regulars; the intel was somewhat fuzzy on that score.
The troops had some heavy metal at the ready in case of attack, that much was clear — quad Shilka guns mounted on a BTR track chassis, sentries in two guard towers located to place intersecting fields of .50 caliber machinegun fire on approaching targets and maybe some smaller stuff too, such as Plamya automatic grenade launchers, known to be a favorite toy of Iranian Takavar forces.
Breaux and Omega's planning staff had proceeded on the assumption that the Iranians had the surrounding desert divided into a grid system like the Germans had set up at Normandy, so spotters could radio in grid coordinates and the guard posts put fire on them without even needing visual contact with enemy forces.
The firepower at Kermanshah was enough to pin down a medium-sized assault element, but Boogie packed enough firepower to overwhelm the base defenses, plus it would have the advantage of surprise in its favor.
Apart from the armaments on the GCVs and mine-resistant and highly mobile JLTVs, which included TOW missiles, the team was armed with Dragons — lighter-duty analogs of the TOW, capable of shoulder- or tripod-launch — 81 millimeter mortars that could be set up to drop fire inside the compound, and a SADARM-(Sense and Destroy Armor) ILS top-attack rig for use against roving enemy armor. These had proven highly effective on Omega's mission into Vojvodina during the Second Balkan War conflict to destroy nuclear-capable SAM missile TELs sometime before.
The Eagle Patchers of Boogie also had two guardian angels in the form of AH-1Z Vipers that had been assigned the troop for offensive and supporting fire during the attack. The AH-1Zs were shadowing the unit as it approached the target.
The presence of the helos was a time-saver, the added security they offered making it feasible for the mechanized troop to use the Isfahan-Shiraz highway that ran close to Kermanshah instead of navigating open desert.
If a stink brewed up, the Vipers could stamp it canceled in a hurry.
The mechanized force rolled on toward its objective, the ground elements keeping in contact with the two trailing gun ships while themselves keeping a weather eye cocked for trouble that might materialize from the outlying desert or the road.
There were a lot of wadis in the vicinity, some of them deep, twisting, meandering ravines cut by flash-flood waters. It was possible in theory for unfriendly patrols to be holed up somewhere inside them and remain unseen by either the helos or the Eagle Patchers until friendly troops were practically right on top of them.
Breaux steeled himself for a hard landing. The stick of HALO chutists that had walked from the hold of a C-130 two hundred miles away and a few thousand feet up was now nearing the end of its long, tapering, downward glide.
Limned in his head-mounted display, hardly twenty feet below and directly ahead of him, lay the south corner of the Mashdad presidential palace that was the strike's primary target. The light-amplifying screen in front of him showed that the darkened landing zone was clear of troops and other combat hazards.
The complex was now under attack by Eagle Patcher ground and heliborne elements. Gorilla's mechanized infantry forces were converging on the palace from the opposite end while the single AH-1Z fired missile strikes and automatic cannon at targets of opportunity, drawing defensive fire in its direction while the paraforce dropped in unseen like Santa down the chimney.
Breaux's multifunction see-through HMD displayed alphanumeric readouts in three colors. The blue altitude line similar to a fighter cockpit's dropped between numeric brackets to show the rate of descent. The relative positions of the other members of the paratroop detail were displayed as small human symbols in red, relative to the wearer's position in yellow.
Breaux keyed his lipmike and gave the troop last-minute instructions before they hit the ground running. By now the chutist stick was only a few feet above the rooftop level of the multistory apartment block rising up from the south end of the mini-city.
As Breaux dropped below the level of the roof parapets he could see inside some of the windows of the upper floors where lights dimly shone. But his attention was now tightly focused on the bare ground in front of him and his thoughts raced ahead to what had to be done very quickly during the next few minutes.
While making their descent the paratroops were as vulnerable as clay pigeons at a skeet-shoot, but they would be more vulnerable still as they hit the ground and shucked their chute harnesses, disoriented and slowed by the changeover to land combat. Breaux, like all the others, had to stay agile and alert.
Within seconds, Breaux was down on the ground, striking the paved surface with both feet and simultaneously pulling the quick-disengagement hand grip to get rid of the chute which was now a major encumbrance. With a quick tug on the hand grip, the parafoil broke away and scudded along the pavement in the direction of the wind.
Breaux immediately had his main weapon, an AKS-74 with an under-mounted M-203 grenade launcher, in his tactical-gloved hands, moving quickly to a defensive position to get clear of the other Eagle Patchers coming down behind him and to cover their flanks while they too unharnessed on the ground.
As he watched the airborne element come gliding down all around him, a muted warble sounded in his ear and one of the soldier-icons on his NVG display flashed blue, signaling a transmission from a member of the paraforce.
"Blue Man in position."
"You're not supposed to be. How'd you get there?" Breaux returned.
"Boss, I figured the rooftop was just big enough to take the chance, and it was so close I couldn't resist. So here I am."
Blue Man was the team's sniper designation, named for Tuareq rifle marksmen of the North African desert. Blue Man had orders to enter the multistory apartment block at the center of the complex once it was deemed secure and then go to the rooftop to cover and spot for the team.
Blue Man was equipped with a Heckler & Koch Präzisionsschützengewehr-1 (PSG1) sniper rifle with a very accurate digital scope developed by DARPA to replace the standard Zeiss Hensoldt 6 X 42 LED-enhanced scope and manual reticle. Blue Man would be able to pick off or pin down Takavar that Eagle Patcher ground elements might not be able to spot.
But Blue Man wasn't supposed to be up there yet, not without a team having first secured the building. Still, there he was. Breaux told him to stay alert and report in at regular intervals. He'd be informed when a security detail would be in the building to provide security backup.
Meanwhile the rest of the chutist stick was almost fully landed. So far there was no hostile engagement with the paratroops. The diversionary assault fire from Gorilla and the helo — code-named Angry Falcon — was obviously doing its intended job, and it was obvious to Breaux that said fire was intensifying as the defenders responded with a fierce resistance.
The Takavar were not Special Revolutionary Guards. They were regular Iranian army, members of the elite 23rd Commando Division. But they were elite cadre nevertheless, having received specialist forces training at the 23rd's combat training center at Imam Daneshkadeh Afsari Ali Military Academy, and been awarded the right to wear the purple berets of specialist commando troops.