“We’ll take it,” Doucette said.
“To avoid a repeat of what happened in France, Colonel Von Drexler is going to lead the contingent. He’ll take two of our aircraft to Nellis. You two will leave today for McClellan AFB and pick up an aircraft that has just come out of maintenance. The 431st Test and Eval Squadron out there says it’s tweaked and ready to go. Be at Nellis Monday morning. That’s all.”
The two saluted and left. “See, I told you not to worry,” Doucette told a skeptical Contreraz.
Damn, he’s good, Cunningham thought as he listened to the commander of Delta Force, Colonel Sam Johnson, outline the planned rescue for the group gathered around the table. Where in the hell did Leachmeyer find him? I’d trade Mado for him in a heartbeat, the man’s a natural leader. Well, he did have Stansell …
The group gathered around the table deep in the bowels of the Pentagon were there at the direction of the President and comprised one of the most important working committees ever assembled in the name of Intelligence. And they had one objective — to insure that the best intelligence the U.S. had was at the disposal of the rescue force going after the POWs. Cunningham listened as the chief of the National Reconnaissance Office announced he had repositioned a Keyhole satellite to pass over the compound at Kermanshah every eight hours. The Deputy Director of the CIA assured them that the barracks behind the prison were only occupied by a few families seeking shelter from the coming winter and were not a consideration. The select group then spent more than thirty minutes discussing the armored regiment moving into position at Shahabad, forty-two miles southwest of the prison compound.
And Cunningham saw the plan start to come apart. The Army was going to insert a blocking force at the highway bridge halfway to Kermanshah to destroy the bridge and delay any relief column that tried to move down the road. Near the end of the meeting Cunningham asked the deputy director of the CIA if they could get operatives into the area to support the rescue team or at least to determine how fast the armored regiment could react to the American raid. The man seemed flustered until Camm came to his rescue. “General Cunningham, the president has been very specific in our marching orders. We are to provide you with everything we’ve got that can help. But we cannot get operationally involved without the knowledge of the congressional select committees on intelligence. And the President doesn’t want to take that step at this point.” Carom’s boss shot him a grateful look. Camm had decided that he would only relay sanitized intelligence from Deep Furrow to the military and to hold back from involving the CIA, until Susan Fisher came up with a plan for the CIA to rescue the POWs.
Cunningham was disgusted. Any help from the CIA for the ground support the Air Force’s plan called for was down the drain. The general chalked it all up to bureaucratic politics.
As the group broke up, Cunningham cornered Camm and the Deputy Director for the CIA. “I think you should explore ways to get a player in place at Kermanshah to help Delta Force. If nothing else he can relay last minute intelligence and arrange an overland escape route if things go to hell in a handbasket.”
“General,” Camm answered, “we’re doing exactly what the President has directed—”
“But you can offer him valid alternatives to consider.”
Stony silence from the two men. The disgust that had been eating at Cunningham broke through. It was time, he decided, to send them a message. “If I find out that you two gentlemen haven’t done everything you can to help, I’ll personally fly the B-52 that’ll bomb your goddamn temple at Langley back to the Stone Age. Count on it, assholes.” He left then without waiting for an outraged reaction.
A phone call had alerted Cunningham’s aide that the general was upset, and Stevens was waiting in his office. “Dick,” Cunningham said, not sounding the least angry, “please ask Colonel Ben Yuriden to see me soonest.”
Yuriden was the Israeli air attaché.
Stansell was waiting with Pullman for the C-130 carrying the first of the Rangers to taxi into the blocks. The battalion’s commander, a burly army officer, led his staff off the Hercules, marched up to Stansell and snapped a salute. “Lieutenant Colonel Leland Gregory.” Stansell studied the man in front of him as he returned the salute. Neatly tailored fatigues hid most of his expanding waistline, his round face seemed to glow. His big hand engulfed Stansell’s when they shook — the reason for Gregory’s moniker, “Ham.”
Gregory then introduced his headquarters staff — two company commanders and his Command Sergeant Major, Victor Kamigami. Stansell was stunned by the size of Kamigami, a huge Japanese-Hawaiian whose proportions approached those of a sumo wrestler.
Pullman shepherded the group to their headquarters in the three trailers he had commandeered, and Gregory and his group were quickly settled in and at work. “We’ve got two companies one hour behind us,” Gregory said. “Where do we bivouac?” Pullman explained how they were going to establish their training camp at Texas Lake and that the tents and equipment had been brought in the day before.
“Sir, I’ll take care of that,” Kamigami said. His voice was startlingly soft, incongruous with his size. Pullman arranged for a helicopter to fly Kamigami and the two company commanders to the dry lake to set up the camp, and at the last minute decided to go with them.
Stansell stopped by the trailers an hour later. “Colonel, we appreciate the trailers,” Gregory said. “The VOQ is full and we’re booked in at a motel downtown. We should have some rental cars for transportation here late today. Looking good.”
But it was all too routine for Stansell. “Colonel Gregory, I think we need to talk — inside.” He pointed to building 201. “Bring your key men.” Gregory motioned for his S-2, the staff’s intelligence officer, and S-3, his operations officer, to follow them into the Intelligence vault, where Dewa spent her days. Bryant closed the door as they found seats.
“Our code name here is Task Force Alpha,” Stansell began. “I assume you know why you’re here and are all volunteers.”
Gregory nodded. “General Leachmeyer said Task Force Alpha is a training program for large-scale integrated rescue missions. We don’t need to ask for volunteers. This is what we’re all about.”
Stansell swallowed back a rising sense of frustration. “There’s more to it than routine training. We could”—will be, he wanted to say—“be called on for the real thing.”
The Army officers exchanged glances. The S-3, the tall major in charge of operations, shook his head. “Don’t bet on it, Colonel. Delta Force at Fort Bragg specializes in this type of operation. We always suck hind tit to them. And to the First Battalion, and to the Second …”
Stansell ignored it. “We’re on a tight schedule here. Colonel Gregory, you’re the ground commander. Your objectives are to assault a prison, free the prisoners held there, secure an airfield and get your Rangers and the prisoners to the airfield.”
“Right,” Gregory boomed, gung ho to be a field commander.
Stansell’s annoyance wouldn’t go away. He warned himself that he was getting hyper and had better wait and see how the Rangers performed before making a judgment. For the next two hours he watched as the men went over the mission, and Gregory said he would organize a composite rescue team to storm the prison and free the prisoners.
“We’ve got a dozen men who’ve been through the Special Ops School at Fort Bragg,” his operations officer said. “They can blow those doors open in a minute. We organize Lieutenant Jamison’s platoon into a composite rescue team — call it Romeo Team, ‘Romeo’ for ‘rescue.’ “