In all cases special equipment, such as ROC-1 NBC agent detectors, were carried by squad members. The handheld units could analyze even microscopic samples of NBC agents including chemical and biological toxins and radioactive isotopes used in nuclear warheads.
The squads were also equipped with full MOPP-6 level protective gear which was not as cumbersome as the old style gear. Most of the protective gear was kept stowed in their rucks so it wouldn't compromise troop mobility. If toxic or radioactive agents needed special handling, weapons disposal teams would suit up and go to work while their buddies secured the area.
Breaux hitched up with A-Squad, whose objective was the domed central structure at the southern sector of the palace. This was thought to be less a building than an elaborate shell to house and conceal a working prototype of the largest of the big artillery tubes that the Iranians were suspected of harboring here.
Though its objective appeared undefended, A-squad inched up carefully. Doing it by the numbers, one team was positioned to provide cover fire while a door-kicker squadron took the point for the actual assault.
Even up close, the Omega hard-chargers met no resistance. The building appeared unoccupied, its doors unlocked and swinging freely open. Just to make sure, a two-man team pitched frag grenades into the interior, ducking back behind the colonnades fronting the entrance as the grenades exploded with multiple ka-rumps somewhere inside. When the smoke and debris cleared, Chicken Wire came rushing in hurling blindfire from his M60E4 MG this way and that. Yet there remained no sign of defensive personnel and the area was pronounced secure.
Breaux ordered A-squad to deploy into the building, but warned his troops to look sharp and watch out for booby traps. One too-green soldier, about to kick in a door, paid no attention to the colonel's shouted warning to hold off, and then it was too late. As the sole of his boot made contact, the door blew off its hinges, taking most of the foot that had kicked it with it. A few ounces of plastic explosive had been hidden just behind the door, the detonator triggered by a mercury tilt-switch sensitive to the slightest vibration. As a medic rushed over, the legless paraplegic lay moaning and bleeding on the terrazzo.
On the building's below-ground level, other squad elements were suddenly taking fire. Apparently there were Pasdaran troops inside the multilevel building, most of which was underground, after all.
The fire came from enemy who had taken shelter in the base as the attack unfolded, hoping to evade discovery. Now that they'd been discovered, they'd decided to shoot it out rather than surrender, but they were apparently not well-trained as commandos and porting small arms only.
Some of these troops did surrender after more fire was traded, but others had no intention of being taken alive. One Iranian ran straight into a group of US grunts detonating two grenades in a suicide attack, shouting, "Vengeance! Vengeance!" in Arabic. He took three of Breaux's crew with him to wherever it was he thought he was going, heaven, hell or neither.
Minutes later, Breaux was blowing a door off its hinges with a bullpup shotgun blast using special door-busting power loads. Behind the door there lay a vast storeroom. The big artillery tube was there — almost. Sections of metal ranging from components of a large super cannon to the same crated heavy artillery tubes that had been videotaped by SFOD-O in the Elburz mountains the previous month were stacked here and there on the concrete floor.
But there was nothing else. And there was no functional weapon in place. The team had come up empty. This was a dry hole.
B-Squad found its objective and secured it without a shot being traded. Moonlight streamed in through the shattered windows as the team fanned out through the interior of the low-rise cinderblock building, their weapons at the ready, alert for the tripwires of booby traps, the silhouettes of snipers on the catwalk above or other signs of danger.
But the place had the look and smell of dereliction and disuse about it and they met no challenge. The bare cement floor was strewn with debris ranging from discarded food wrappers to yellowed newspapers that had been left to rot and mildew. The four corners also had obviously been used as toilets, and it was obvious from the stench that this use was of recent vintage. Apart from this, there was no sign of human habitation
The hard-chargers of B-Squad continued to search through the interior of the single-story building, looking for concealed rooms or entrances to hidden below-ground workshops or storage bunkers. In the end, their efforts yielded nothing and the area was judged secure.
What the squad did turn up were indications that stockpiles of components of weapons of mass destruction had been stored here until fairly recently. Abrasion marks on the concrete floor showed that forklifts and heavy loaders had probably been working in the warehouse structure only a short while ago.
Moreover, the ROC-1 sniffers showed miniscule traces of NBC contaminants in the air, with concentrations absorbed in the porous concrete where stacks of crates were thought to have been piled.
But now — nothing.
Another dry hole.
It was no cakewalk for C-Squad which found itself facing determined resistance from within its search objective. The fire started up well before the Omega Force commandos had approached the multistory white-brick building, forcing the detail to scramble for cover. A couple of Americans had been hit by the fusillade and the Eagle Patcher medic attached to the unit had his hands full treating the wounded, especially because the pill-roller himself was taking fire as he ran to attend them.
C-Squad was pinned down behind the low, decorative stone walls and manicured plane trees that lined the gently curving walkways that led up to the building. It was obvious that an Iranian defensive unit had dug in here and was expecting an attack, because the fire was accurate and well-coordinated.
Fire lanes had obviously been mapped out in advance by an officer who knew his business and sniper teams on the roof and in the windows of the multistory building were shooting as if they knew exactly where to place their rounds. There was undoubtedly a spotter or spotters somewhere high up who could call in fire by means of grid coordinates.
As the minutes ticked by, US forces on the ground were getting picked off by the Iranians holding the building. C-Squad was left with one option, and that was to call in Angry Falcon. Mst. Sgt. Spudder, the squad's commander, didn't like to have his dirty work done for him by helo-jockeys, but it was either get some air in fast or fall back under intense fire, taking more casualties in the process.
The Viper on loan to the assault force vectored in for the strike a few minutes later. Almost instantly it came under attack from the Pasdaran pom-pom gun emplacement on the roof. They had set up a Norinco twenty-millimeter triple-A rig with enough range to hit the chopper if it came in too close. The triple-A crew was pumping out red tracer fire at the helo with a will to vengeance.
It was notoriously hard to ignite an aircraft's fuel tanks with ordinary rounds, but with a salvo of phosphorus-coated 20-mike-mike, you could certainly do it. The AH-1Z's pilot made sure to keep his bird well out of range of the slug-spitting Chinese coaxial gun on the roof for that one good reason.
And so, from a hover at standoff range, the pilot uncaged one of the helo's Sidewinder missiles, got a firing solution and launched the bird. Seconds later, the missile slammed into the roof, its twenty-five pound shaped charge warhead exploding with tremendous impact in the center of the gun emplacement. The troops were blown literally to bits, heads and limbs ripped from their torsos and hurled to and fro by the force of the powerful explosive concussion.