Chief Pullman knocked on the door and stuck his big head in. “General Mado, there’s a phone call for you. A Barbara Lyon.”
“I’ll take it in private,” Mado said. Dewa followed Stansell out, leaving the general alone.
“That’s a dinner invitation for tonight,” she told Stansell. “Should keep him occupied for a while—”
“Dewa … did you—?”
Mado came out of the office. “It’s looking good. The President will be in place at eight-thirty tomorrow morning. I’ll be here at five o’clock. Make it all happen, Rupe.” He grabbed up his hat and moved double-time out of the office.
“Well,” Dewa said, “there goes a man in a hurry. We’ve got decisions to make. I think you should run the exercise exactly as called for in OPORD WARLORD.” She waited expectantly. Rupert Stansell, she thought, you are so damn straight, even naive about some things. Maybe that’s why I go for you. Now if I can just wake you up …
“Right.” He picked up the phone, calling the trailers. “Thunder, we start the clock for the exercise tonight. H-hour is twenty-three hundred local time. As planned all the way. No options.” Stansell dropped the phone into its cradle. By H plus ten, ten hours into the operation, at nine o’clock Sunday morning, the Rangers would be in place and the F- Ill s would be knocking holes in the “prison’s” walls. With the President watching.
Stansell picked up the phone again. “Gillian? Jack there? Good. Tell him to have his body out here by four tomorrow morning.”
He frankly envied Jack, having a wife like Gillian — right there when he needed her most.
CHAPTER 32
Mokhtari stood back while the guard unlocked the first door in the main cell block. A powerful odor assaulted him; it was worse on the third floor. He told the waiting doctor to examine the prisoners.
The Iranian doctor reached into his bag, took out a face mask and adjusted it in place before he entered the cell. In a few minutes he was out and reporting to the commandant that all three were very sick. “That one”—he pointed to the master sergeant trying to sit at attention as the rules required—“is near death. Unless he receives medical attention within the week he’ll die.”
“Then we’ll send him to the IPRP,” Mokhtari said, remembering the hawk-eyed general’s instructions. “His number?”
“One-eighty-nine,” the guard said.
“Mark it,” Mokhtari ordered. The guard banged the cell door shut and chalked the number on the outside before they moved to the next cell.
The President was standing next to the jeep with the communications gear and talking to the sergeant. “Chief Pullman, I understand you’re the one who got this built … He waved his hand at the odd-shaped structure a mile away that consisted of the front wall, four guard towers that marked the corners of the real compound, a set of stakes that marked the administration building and a facade for the main building. Stairs ran up the left side of the facade to the long balcony that represented each floor. On the left side of each balcony was the guards’ office and a string of cells stretched to the right, thirteen to a side.
“I just got the right people involved, sir.”
“Like at Ras Assanya when you shanghaied a C-130 for the evacuation?” The President’s staff had briefed him early that morning on the people he would be meeting during the day.
“Sir, how did you …?
“Chief, you’re a bit of a legend in the Air Force, and I’m your commander-in-chief. I appreciate what you did.”
“But … but …”
“Why all the buts?”
“Sir, I got a confession. I voted for the other guy.”
The President’s roar of laughter echoed over the worried generals who were standing nearby. “Chief, who should I be listening to during this dog and pony show?”
“Colonel Stansell, sir. He’s the only one with a clue.”
The President beckoned to his chief of staff, drawing him over, and told him to get Stansell and keep the others away.
“Romeo Team under Captain Bob Trimler and First Lieutenant George Jamison will free the POWs,” Stansell told the President. “They were parachuted in last night and if you’ll look there”—he pointed to a ditch three hundred yards in front of the prison wall—“you should be able to see them.”
The President swept his binoculars over the area. “That’s damn close for live bombs.”
“If we can’t do it here we won’t be able to do it in Iran. There …” He pointed to the first F-111 streaking up the valley, running past Beasely’s in-bound AC-130. “The Rangers will lase the spots where they want the bombs to breach the walls.” The President watched the F-111 pull up and toss a five-hundred-pound smart bomb. He could see another F-111 one minute in trail. “The second F-111 is going to ripple off two bombs. One into the wall and the other into the administration building right outside. Romeo Team can only illuminate the wall so they’ve got to be good to get the second one into the administration building. We use five-hundred-pounders to limit collateral damage. A two-thousand pounder might take out the POWs.”
“Who’s delivering the mail,” the President asked, surprising both Stansell and Pullman with his knowledge of F-111 operations.
“Captain Ramon Contreraz.” They watched the attack develop through their binoculars. Von Drexler tossed the first bomb and turned away to the left while Doucette came in behind him. The AC-130 was right behind them. All three bombs exploded. “Three bulls,” Stansell said.
The AC-130 moving over the settling debris of the bombs set up a left-hand-pylon turn over the prison and a torrent of gunfire erupted from its left side. The four towers disappeared in a hail from the gunship’s two 40mm Bofors guns. “Captain Beasely, the AC-130 aircraft commander, is only using two 40 millimeter guns on this pass, not the 20 millimeter Gatling guns or the 105 millimeter cannon,” Stansell told him.
“I understand they call the pilot the Beezer. Unusual nickname,” the President said. By now, Stansell was not surprised by what he knew.
“The AC-130 and other aircraft will orbit clear of the prison,” Stansell continued, “while Romeo Team rushes the walls.” The President watched the Rangers run for the two holes in the walls. “The gunship is also our airborne command-and-control platform with General Mado and Captain James Bryant on board. They will coordinate the attack and establish communications with the Command Center in the Pentagon. When the airfield is secure they will land and operate from there.”
He pointed to a C-130 flying over a drop zone two-and-a-half miles to the east. Parachutes blossomed behind the C-130. “We’ll drop a runway-clearing team from Bravo Company to secure the airfield. Two combat controllers will go in with them. Once the airfield is secure they’ll clear the C-130s to land. I’ll be on board the first C-130 with Lieutenant Colonel Gregory, the ground commander. When we’re on the ground, jeep teams will secure the road to the prison. It’s Colonel Gregory’s job to get Romeo Team and the POWs aboard the C-130s.”
They watched while trucks drove toward the prison. Shortly after, three jeeps and a motorcycle came down the road from the airfield. “Two of those jeep teams have to keep moving, they’ve got to block a key highway intersection — Objective Red — a mile down the road that controls the western approach to the prison,” Stansell said.
“Who makes the decision to take off?”
“General Mado.”
“Why aren’t you there now?”