“Half is better than nothing,” Camm said, “especially after a fumbled rescue attempt by Defense. Our stock with the President should go sky-high when we salvage something out of the shambles. The public and Congress will be more than happy to settle for half a loaf. But not before then … Is Delta Force ready?”
“Yes, sir, but they’ve been compromised. A sergeant … went home on emergency leave, got drunk and started bragging in a bar—”
“Our source?”
“The woman Jihad agent we turned. After interrogating Askari, he’s the Jihad who tried to kidnap Stansell, we put her onto the Albanian diplomat who was Askari’s contact. Seems he’s horny and likes to impress her.”
The cracking of the Islamic Jihad ring was paying results. “What about the Air Force’s Task Force Alpha?”
“They’re still clean, although who knows what they’re doing out there in the desert … Mr. Camm, we have not disseminated the intelligence on the compromise of Delta Force or the current status of the POWs.”
Camm leaned back in his chair, thinking about his next move. He considered himself a loyal, dedicated person who put the interests of his country above all else. He also believed the long-term interests of the United States would be better served by a strong and effective CIA capable of carrying out covert operations free of what he considered partisan political interference. If Deep Furrow could rescue half of the POWs and convince the President that unrestricted covert operations should be run by loyal and dedicated professionals like himself, well, he would have made a giant stride toward reaching that overarching goal. If pressed on the matter, he would agree that ends-justify-the-means was a hard necessity in hard-ball, head-on-head intelligence …
“The President has got to be told about the compromise of Delta Force. Sanitize our source so I can tell Mr. Burke without revealing how we learned about it. Maybe an intercepted phone call between the Albanians and Iranians.” Should he also pass on what had been learned from Deep Furrow about the POWs? “The other information from Kermanshah … is it one source only?” Fisher nodded. “We’d better not pass that along then until we can confirm it.” He wanted no questions raised that might lead to his Deep Furrow operations.
That, after all, was his future.
Command Sergeant Major Victor Kamigami was puzzled when he heard that Romeo Team was switching to MT-1X parachutes. He wanted to know why the change in plans. His curiosity got the better of him when he heard they were going to be using oxygen. That had to mean a high-altitude drop. He decided to get involved when a Ranger from Romeo Team bragged that they would be using high-altitude opening techniques. Rather than sound out his officers — Gregory could be evasive at times — he had done what any CSM would do … he had gone to another E-9. In this case, Chief Pullman.
The anger Kamigami felt when Pullman had fitted all the pieces together for him never surfaced. Just what the hell were they trying to do without telling him! Pullman had sensed the CSM’s anger, knowing how he would feel in the same position. “Sorry,” he had told Kamigami, “I thought your officers briefed you. Otherwise I would’ve back-doored ‘em and filled you in.”
“I’m going along,” Kamigami had said. “Can I borrow your jeep?” It was a long conversation for the CSM. Pullman drove the CSM over to the C-130s in time for the final phase of mounting a high-altitude-high-opening airdrop using the MT-1X.
Trimler found a spot near Kamigami’s jeep to watch the jump-master organize the stick. Kamigami walked over to a trailer to pick out a parachute.
“I guess he wants to go along,” Pullman said.
Trimler gave Pullman a sideways glance. “He teaches five-hundred-pound gorillas how to go where they want.”
After being rigged the CSM got in line for a safety inspection. The men in front suddenly fell out because they were not satisfied with some minor detail, and Kamigami moved quickly to the head of the line. The jumpmaster gave him a thorough inspection, starting at his helmet and finishing with the rucksack’s lowering line.
“Who’s the Romeo Team navigator?” Kamigami asked. The jumpmaster pointed to Baulck, who was talking to Drunkin’ Dunkin, the C-130 navigator, explaining the KNS-81 tacan set that was strapped to his parachute harness. Kamigami nodded approval. Baulck would be the first man out and use the small olive-drab box to home on a portable tacan station set up on the drop zone.
Again he scanned the operation. Everything was going smoothly and according to procedures. But it was too much the routine drill of an exercise, lacked the fire and urgency he had experienced when Urgent Fury, the airdrop on Grenada, had been mounted in October of ‘83. He needed to change that.
“Move,” he barked.
“I feel like the tits on a boar hog,” Stansell mumbled. Captain Don Williamson chose to ignore that and go about his duties at the Watch Center. The colonel had been hanging around the back offices since late Monday, monitoring the situation in Iran and waiting for a call from Cunningham’s office. Actually, the captain liked the short colonel and his dry sense of humor.
“Colonel,” Williamson said, “I’ve got some interesting traffic out of Tehran. The IRP, Islamic Republican Party, is getting cozy with the IPRP. Seems they’re getting ready to swap some POWs around.” He handed Stansell the printout of an intercepted message from the headquarters of the IPRP in Tehran. It set bells ringing.
“Don, can you get a secure line to Nellis? I need to talk to my people out there.” Twelve minutes later Jack Locke’s scratchy voice came over the secure telephone in the battle cab overlooking the main floor of the Watch Center.
“Jack, I need to talk to Dewa.”
“Take a few minutes, sir. I’m in the command center at Nellis. Hold on.” Locke was quickly back on the line. “She’ll be here in a few minutes. Colonel, I want the F-15s to escort a string of C-130s along a low-level route and go right under a HICAP of F-4s. But the weather has to cooperate and I need a cloud deck between the F-4s and F-15s. The ROE are that the F-4s can engage anytime they get a visual contact on the F-15s or C-130s. But the F-15s can only engage when they’re jumped. The F-4s will operate under the same type of control the Iranians use.”
“What’s the purpose, Jack?”
“I’m betting the F-15s can sneak the C-130s right under the F-4 CAP undetected but that their fangs will hang out and they’ll zoom up through the cloud deck to engage the F-4s leaving the C-130s unprotected. Then I’ll jump the C-130s with an F-4. I’ll record it on the VCR through the HUD. That ought to get the attention of the Eagle drivers.”
Stansell hesitated. What Locke was proposing was aggressive and maybe dangerous. He knew from personal experience that so-called Dissimilar Air Combat Tactics was a dicey thing with built-in hazards. He wanted to think about it, but he was running out of time and delaying a decision was not good for morale — he had to trust his people.
“Considering the Iranians fly F-4s, sounds like a good idea. If you can make it work, do it.”
“Thanks, and here’s Dewa.”
“Dewa, I’ve seen a message here that suggests the POWs may be traded off …”
“I’ve seen the same intercept. Rupe, it won’t be long”—the scrambler could not hide the concern in her voice—“I’d say in the next three or four days.”
“Any back-up for that estimate?”
“No, but it’s not just intuition, either. I mean, there’s a rhythm to the way the Iranians work. It’s sort of a cultural thing. It’s going to happen very soon, and if we don’t hurry the well is going to dry up before we get there.”