Zakia Sindi was hidden inside a house next to the army compound in Irbil, scanning Iraqi tactical frequencies. The sweep on her monitoring equipment locked on to Otaybi’s channel and she relayed his distress call to Carroll. “Now we have to see how they react here,” he told her. “Unless they send a relief force the attack is off and we can withdraw.” But he wished he could know something for sure. Alone and guessing…
The soft, rhythmic buzz of the plotter filled the corner of the room. Dewa and Bryant moved aside, letting Stansell watch the computer-generated map printout. “Where did you get that program?” Stansell asked.
“Courtesy of the Defense Mapping Agency,” Bryant told him, “and a little wheelin’ dealin’ by Mizz Rahimi here.”
Stansell watched them plot a route from Turkey into Iran that twisted and turned through the rugged Zagros mountains. “The radar site at Maragheh is our biggest problem,” Bryant said. “Got to work around it.” Then he turned his attention to a 1:250,000 scale map of Nevada, finding equivalent routes to train on. Everything Stansell had seen indicated the C-130 crews could hack the mission and what Bryant was laying out was within their abilities if the weather cooperated.
Jack Locke stuck his head in the door. “Sir, need to talk to you.” Stansell motioned him in.
“I can’t get the F-15 drivers to stick to the scenario. They’re more interested in going head-to-head with each other than escorting C-130s.”
“Fangs starting to hang out?”
“Yeah. They know the LOCAP is supposed to stick with the C-130s until the bad guys get a visual. I’ve briefed the HICAP flight that they can only use vectors from Blackjack, the Range Control Center just like the Iranian defense net — to find the intruders. But they seem to forget that and use everything they’ve got to find each other. Snake left the C-130s uncovered yesterday when the HICAP was still beyond visual range. Not good.”
“Any ideas?”
“Other than telling them what we’re really doing here, Colonel? No.”
“Can’t do that. All we need is some idle chatter at the bar. Keep at ‘em and I’ll work on it—”
They were interrupted by Bryant. “Message from Texas Lake, sir. Seems there was a fight between a couple of Rangers and C-130 loadmasters. Colonel Gregory would appreciate your presence.”
Kamigami was waiting with a jeep and driver for Stansell when the helicopter landed at Texas Lake. He waited until Stansell was in the passenger’s seat, then vaulted into the back seat with an ease that belied his bulk, which tilted the jeep down on his side as the driver headed for the battalion’s headquarters tent.
Four men were standing at attention against the back wall when Stansell entered. A livid Duck Mallard was with Ham Gregory. Gregory told Stansell about the fight between two Romeo Team Rangers and the two C-130 loadmasters in front of the mess tent. “If you want, I’ll build a gallows right now,” Gregory said.
A soft voice came from behind them. “If you will, sir, let me handle it.” It was Victor Kamigami.
“You’ve got it, Sergeant Major,” Gregory said.
Kamigami pointed to the entrance. “Baulck, Wade. Out.” The two Rangers double-timed outside.
Mallard turned to the two loadmasters. “What in the hell were you thinking of. “
“Sir, one of those pukes said that I had to be a certifiable cock-sucker to fly with a crew of two-bit whores and —”
“Petrovich, I don’t give a damn what they said. I’ve a mind to turn you two over to the CSM here …”
“I can solve this problem, sir,” Kamigami reminded him.
“You’ve got ‘em.”
Again, Kamigami pointed to outside. “Wait,” was all he said. The two men repeated the performance of the Rangers.
“I think they’d rather of had the gallows,” Stansell said. “How deep does this go?”
“This is the second flare-up we’ve had,” Mallard said. “Too much tension, no sense of team effort.”
“Now, how in the hell do we cure all that?” Stansell asked. Without blowing security? he silently added.
“Football,” Kamigami said, leaving the tent. “Survivors winners.”
The commander of the motor-rifle division slammed the phone down. What did those idiots in Baghdad expect? He had a division in name only and the forces in garrison at Irbil amounted to little more than a half-strength regiment. They withdraw battalion after battalion to reinforce the border with Iran, and now they expect him to respond like a Soviet motor-rifle division, the model the Iraqis had patterned their army after. If it had been anyone other than that fool Otaybi, the politicos, the asses that Hussein and the ruling council chose to make generals, would have ignored the ambush and let the trapped battalion fight its way out. Now he had to mount a major rescue effort. And all because of the precious Otaybi family.
Still, it wasn’t worth his life to let Ghalib al-Otaybi be captured by the Kurds.
Mustapha Sindi pointed at the shadow moving along the outer wall of the compound that housed the divisional headquarters in Irbil. The last of the relief column had left twenty minutes earlier and the evening twilight was rapidly fading into darkness. The audacity of the Kurds had worried Bill Carroll at first, they seemed totally unconcerned with the risks they were taking and moved casually into place right under the Iraqi guards. He relaxed when he saw how easily they disappeared into the deepening shadows, and his fingers relaxed their stranglehold on the two-foot-length of pipe he was carrying.
The shadowy image moved on. “They’re all in place,” Mustapha Sindi told Carroll, fingering the transmitter that would trigger the series of C4 plastic high-explosive charges placed around the wall. If they all worked, numerous sections of the wall would be breached at the same time. Now they had to wait…
Twenty-three miles to the northeast, the last of the Iraqi relief column was through the small village and passing the destroyed BTR. The Kurd left behind in the village to detonate the explosives timed it well. He hit the switch on his remote actuator and the booby-trapped BTR erupted, taking out the Iraqis in the rear of the relief column …
The dull boom echoed across the valley, reaching Irbil. “It begins,” Sindi said. The light banter typical of the young Kurd was gone. Now he was a serious guerrilla.
They heard Zakia’s voice in the next room talking on the radio. She came to the doorway. “They never suspected the armored car, didn’t even check it,” she reported. “Two trucks and the last armored car were destroyed, the road is cratered. The relief column is trapped on the other side of the village.”
“Tell our man to get the hell out of there,” Carroll said. He was expecting the Iraqi soldiers to sweep through the village and kill many of the inhabitants — most of them loyal Iraqis. “Have them hit the battalion at the bridge one more time. I want that Iraqi yelling for help when we work the headquarters over. Then everyone withdraws together.” Zakia went back to the radio to relay his instructions. “Mustapha — now.”
Sindi keyed the transmitter, and a series of explosions marched around the walls of the headquarters, sending smoke and debris into the air. Without waiting, Carroll and Sindi charged into the smoke along with ninety other Kurds. Sindi tripped over rubble in the smoke and went sprawling — he was not fully recovered from the beating by the Iraqi soldiers but had insisted on going on the raid. Carroll picked him up by the back of his shirt and they covered together the few short steps to the wall. The C4 charge had knocked an eight-foot gap in the wall, and they ran through followed by four others.