The captain shook the doubts from his mind and looked anew at the TSU device on his lap. His eyes scanned to Point Kabob on his screen. More good news. There were no soldiers indicated any closer to the rendezvous point than in the village of Dezli. Surely, he thought, they would have soldiers lying in wait around the rendezvous point if they knew about it. He had two more alternative landing zones that he and his team had reviewed, one to the north of the first two sites and one to the south. The northern route, designated drop zone four, made no sense. The Iranian unit in and around Dezli would be between his men and where they had to get to in order to successfully rendezvous with Arsadian. That left only drop zone three, which was a few miles south of the primary drop zone. This was less preferable to the drop zones to the north because there were a couple of small Kurdish villages that would each be within a mile of the drop. In addition, the southern route meant that the rendezvous with Arsadian would also have to be moved south to Kabob II, the back-up point. Ben Zeev didn’t like changes to the plan, but he was out of options. He motioned for the CIA agent to come over. The American had a small pad that he handed to the Israeli, who wrote down his instructions in English in block letters.
CHANGE TO DZ-3 (SOUTH SARGAT)
As the CIA agent walked up to the cockpit to relay the change in plan, Ben Zeev opened up his backpack which was sitting at his feet. He pulled out a communication device that looked like a handheld GPS unit. He turned it on and entered a four digit code using the small keyboard. The keyboard filled up the bottom half of the device and the keys were marked in both English and Arabic letters. He pressed the send key and waited for confirmation of a successful transmission before turning the device off and repacking it. Six minutes later a message popped onto the screen of his TSU.
Confirmed 4033.
Olympus knew they were heading for drop zone three and that the rendezvous would therefore be at Point Kabob II. They would notify Arsadian.
What no one on board the helicopter or at Olympus knew was that something had occurred earlier that day that the Israelis had not planned for. A group of five men belonging to PJAK, the Party for a Free Kurdistan, had opened fire on an isolated Iranian border post only two miles north of the spot where Task Force Camel had planned to cross the border. As was usual with these events, no one on either side was hit. The Iranian border guards had returned fire with their AKMs and a single U.S. built M2 .50 caliber machine gun left over from the days of the Shah. The latter was convincing enough to drive the Kurdish rebels back across the border into the safety of Iraq.
The news was greeted by the commander of the local Iranian Revolutionary Guards unit based in Biakara as a good reason to take his men into the field and set up some ambush positions for the night. The young commander was full of religious zeal, an outlier even by the standards of the IRG. He yearned for combat against the enemies of Islam and the Islamic Republic and dreamed of being recruited into the elite Quds Force. He needed to exhibit his zealotry to achieve that goal. Taking on PJAK guerillas was not exactly the same as the U.S. Army, but opportunity was opportunity. He knew the odds were against anyone coming along, but he was feeling lucky that day. Besides, the 165 men in his unit needed the field experience.
“Fifteen minutes to delta zulu three,” stated the Chinook pilot into his helmet microphone. He was keyed into the internal system and the four other crew members simultaneously heard the communication. “Go dark.” The co-pilot reached down and manipulated several switches, turning off the tactical formation navigation lights and infrared strobes and the helicopter’s transponder. The three helicopters had for the past five minutes been flying in a very tight formation, much tighter than at any time in the prior five and a half hour flight. One Blackhawk was in front of the formation and maintaining an altitude about 100 feet higher than the other two choppers. The other Blackhawk flew at the same altitude as the Chinook, only off to the port side and slightly trailing the larger helicopter. When the pilot of the trailing Blackhawk helicopter saw the tactical formation lights of the Chinook go out, he immediately turned on a second transponder in his craft that mimicked the signal that had been being squawked by the Chinook. The pair of Blackhawks stayed in formation and began a slow turn to the north. They would spend the next 30 minutes executing a simulated search for a non-existent drone crash site about 15 miles north of the drop zone area. The Night Stalkers would not make it easy for any adversary to track the exact point where their elite cargo was being dropped off.
The pilot of the Chinook, looking at the mountainous terrain under him through a set of AN-AVS 6 night vision binoculars mated to his helmet, began a slow turn to the south and a faster descent down to an altitude only 100 feet above the undulating earth. The next quarter hour of flying was what he lived for and what distinguished him from the average helicopter jockey in the world. The cockpit of the advanced special operations helicopter had numerous flat panel displays that illuminated the earth ahead of them, including forward looking infrared and thermal imaging. But like most Night Stalker pilots, this man largely ignored these monitors and instead relied upon his helmet night vision system. In the cabin, the crew chief lifted his left hand and flashed a single finger immediately followed by all five fingers. He then dimmed the soft green glow of the combat lights in the cabin to the lowest setting. The Israeli team began their final preparations for insertion into hostile territory. Several team members had to nudge the man next to him awake.
At 10:42 p.m. Iraqi time, the Chinook helicopter descended slowly toward a high mountain valley. The elevation of the earth beneath them was 3,978 feet. Every man in Task Force Camel had his backpack, winter coat and gloves on, his AKM slung over his shoulder, a GPS device on his wrist and his patrol cap tucked firmly in his pocket. Finally, each man had put on head gear to mount the light weight AN/PVS-14 night vision monocle. The men were all cold but knew that they would soon be warmed by the exertion of hiking through the Zagros mountain range, not to mention the accelerated heart rhythm that would come from stepping foot on Iranian soil.
At the back of the twin engine helicopter the ramp was down and a pair of two inch thick ropes, each 40 feet long, hung from giant eye bolts attached to box beams at the top of the helicopter interior. The ropes now hung in the black void. Every member of the helicopter’s crew was wearing night vision goggles. Two of the crew, following standard operating procedure for a fast rope insertion, were on each side of the ramp on one knee with one hand firmly gripping the interior frame of the helicopter and their upper bodies thrust into the clear mountain air. Each man, secured by a thin cable tether, looked forward toward the drop zone as the Chinook maneuvered into a slow forward hover for insertion. Their job was to spot any obstacle that might damage the helicopter as it moved to hover approximately 15 feet above the valley floor. The crew chief watched his two men on the ramp and waited for the signal.