Stansell had never seen the general like this. Normally he at least seemed cool. “Sir, I know that. But as your mission commander it’s my job to run the show for you, to put together the nuts and bolts, spare you the details. Right now some of those details have changed and that means we need to fall back and reevaluate. The reason to go low-level through the mountains is to avoid radar detection, but the radar site at Maragheh is off the air and that does open a corridor for us … we don’t need to go low-level to avoid it. We can fly above the cloud deck if we have to and still use whatever terrain-masking the mountains offer—”
“Colonel, I don’t screw around with a plan that’s been carefully worked out in advance and approved by my commander.”
Stansell translated it a different way — Mado had never been in combat, he had never experienced the turmoil and chaos that ruined the best of plans, that made constant change S.O.P. Mado had become too much of a staff officer, a bureaucrat playing political games in the halls and offices of the Pentagon. Well, now it was the game he would have to play or Task Force Alpha would stay on the ramp at Incirlik.
“Sir, you know there will be a congressional investigation regardless of what we do.” Stansell made his voice a matter of fact. “How will it look, sir, to a bunch of congressional Monday-morning quarterbacks when they see we didn’t react to the radar gap in the Iranian air defense net?” He had the general’s attention. “The harder we press, the better it will look to them. When we tried to rescue the hostages from the American Embassy in Tehran in 1980 the mission fell apart when they landed in Iran on that desert airstrip. Yet most of them came out looking like heroes for at least trying. Carter took the heat …”
“Yes, but the situation is different now.”
Mado was weakening?
“What politician will understand that? Hell, Eisenhower knew the name of the game in 1944 when he made the decision to launch the invasion of Normandy based on a predicted break in the weather. He knew that failure would hurt him, but sitting on his duff and not trying would kill him. And the invasion. He gutted it out and was proved right. He got to be President of the United States …”
The look on Mado’s face told Stansell that he had hit the right keys. He pressed his advantage. “Think how it’s going to look when we pull this off and you get up in front of a congressional committee and say a whiz kid of a first lieutenant predicted the weather would improve and I believed him. Ironic, isn’t it, General? Because the radar site is down, the weather here isn’t a critical factor. But they won’t know that, won’t understand it.”
Mado turned and walked out onto the main floor of the command post. It was his moment, and he played it for all it was worth. “We are going to bring the POWs home,” he announced. “Status of the AWACS?”
“On station, still reporting Maragheh off the air,” came the reply.
“Good. When is the Iranian airliner scheduled to land at Rezaiyeh?” This was the airliner that Kowalski would have to intercept and piggyback on to drop the Rangers.
“In an hour, sir.”
“Weather?”
“No change.”
“Gentlemen, it’s a Go. Launch the C-130.” The general was standing, almost at attention. Stansell noticed his hands were shaking slightly. Well, why shouldn’t they be?
The Rangers were already rigged and inspected and formed up in two lines waiting to climb on board the waiting C-130 in front of the hangar. Each of them was loaded with over a hundred pounds of equipment. Gregory drove up in a pickup with Thunder and jumped out, pointing at Trimler. Thunder motioned for Captain Kowalski and her crew to join him on the flight deck.
“Bob,” Gregory said, returning Trimler’s salute. “It’s a Go. But I want to talk to the men first.” He smiled at the young captain. “Don’t worry, it’ll be short.” The lieutenant colonel walked up the ramp of the C-130 until he could see all the men. “If you haven’t figured it out by now,” he said, pitching his voice low, “you’re soft in the head. We’re the ones going after the POWs being held in Iran. Us — the Third of the Seventy-fifth. It’s not going to be a walk through or a piece of cake or exactly like we’ve trained. Combat never is. Most likely it’ll turn into a piece of shit and that’s when you’ll prove what you are. But I promise you one thing, I’ll be there to get you out. We go in like Rangers and we come out like Rangers. Good luck, good hunting.” He jumped off the ramp and the Rangers started to shuffle on board.
Thunder was on the flight deck talking to the aircrew. “No changes, do it like we trained. Your call sign is Scamp One-One. The AWACS controlling you is Delray Five-One. Frequencies as briefed.” He looked at the four women on the flight deck. “Engine start in fifteen minutes, takeoff on the hour.”
“Thunder,” Kowalski said, “send Hank up.” Staff Sergeant Hank Petrovich was the crew’s loadmaster. “Let me tell him.”
Thunder climbed down the ladder onto the cargo deck and told Petrovich to see his aircraft commander. His gaze swept over the two lines of Rangers sitting in the jump seats along the side of the fuselage, eleven to a side. The jumpmaster was standing with Trimler on the ramp, talking to the Romeo Team’s first lieutenant, George Jamison. A huge lumbering figure walked up the ramp fully rigged with a rucksack slung in front, banging off his knees. It was Kamigami. He nodded his head in the direction of the officers and took the end seat on the right, closest to the flight deck.
Thunder felt better just seeing him.
Stansell was sitting next to Mado in the command post, both enduring the wait. The small loudspeaker mounted in the console in front of them crackled to life. “Ground. Scamp One-One, engine start.” It was Kowalski.
“Roger, Scamp One-One,” Ground Control answered. “Cleared for engine start. Taxi when ready.”
“Roger, Ground.”
“Good,” Stansell observed, “it sounds routine.” Mado’s building nervousness played at the edges of his mouth.
“Tower, Scamp One-One. Holding short of the runway.” “Roger, Scamp One-One. Taxi into position and hold.”
Mado shook his head. “What’s taking so long?”
“They’re right on time,” Stansell told him.
From the tower: “Scamp One-One. Cleared for takeoff.”
“Rolling.” Again, Kowalski sounded as if it was business as normal.
“Start the clock,” Stansell said. “On the hour at sixteen hundred Zulu.”
H-hour.
CHAPTER 37
“Your attention please,” the loudspeaker in the National Military Command Center silenced the multiple private conversations that were going on. “Operation WARLORD commenced at sixteen hundred hours Zulu.”
Cunningham watched the mission clock rapidly scroll through numbers until it caught up. The master clock read 1701 Zulu, Greenwich Mean Time, and the mission clock beneath it read 01:01—H-hour plus one hour and one minute. So, he calculated, command and control system was sixty-one minutes behind real time. And that was without any problems or heavy message traffic. Once Task Force Alpha started using its satellite communications system he’d be in direct contact with Mado and things should speed up. We’ve still got to rely on the men in the arena to do their job, he thought … but have I chosen the right men? Are they up to it? Well, too late for second thoughts now.
The general looked around the room. Heads were bent over the thick mission briefing books Mado had prepared. All were turned to the page for H-hour listing the objectives, actions, and players, reviewing what should be happening. Instant Monday-morning quarterbacks, he thought. He twisted further around and checked the glassed-in Command Authority room. The National Security Advisor was alone, sitting in the President’s chair, telephone in hand. Probably calling the White House on the secure line with the news.