The lead sergeant was the low man and he pounded up the short flight of steel steps leading to the first floor of the cell block. His high man was right behind him, perched over his right shoulder. The door to the first-floor guards’ office on the left was open, and the low man went right through it at an oblique angle, his Beretta automatic extended in front in a two-handed shooter’s grip. He swept the corner opposite to him and then swung his pistol in an arc to the center, concentrating on anything below the waist. His high man was right behind him, button-hooked to the left and cleared his opposite corner just like the low man, but he concentrated on anything above the waist.
Two guards were in the room, one crouched on the floor holding the telephone in his right hand. The low man pumped two shots into his head. The other man was standing barefoot with his hands above his head. He lived. The second team rushed past the office door heading for the second floor while the third team flushed the basement. The backup man came through the door and slapped plastic flex cuffs on the guard’s wrists and ankles while the high man mashed a strip of wide adhesive tape across his mouth. Then they were out the door and up the stairs, following the second team to leap frog them to the third floor.
A burst of rapid shots echoed down the stairwell. The second team had found three guards in the office holding weapons. The first team waited until they were waved past the office before they charged the flight of stairs that led to the next landing. They heard a single shot ring out from the basement followed by four shots from two 9mm pistols. Then silence.
Before they reached the turn landing the sergeant caught a vague movement in the shadows directly above him on the next flight of stairs. It had been little more than a flicker through the open steps, but it was enough. He stopped and pointed with his forefinger to the shadow, his thumb pointed down — hand-sign for the enemy. The backup man leveled his M- 16 under his right arm, the forefinger of his left hand extended along the stock in a point-and-shoot position. At the go sign from his lead he moved up the steps to the landing, but his boot caught under the last step and he stumbled, falling out onto the small platform. He rolled and fired up the stairs before a shot ripped into his left leg, just below the knee, shattering the fibula in his lower leg.
Silence.
The lead holstered his 9mm and swung his submachine gun down. He inched up the steps and shoved his weapon around the corner, firing blindly. The high man stepped around him and placed four shots into the shadow above them. A body slid down the stairs.
They regrouped and went up the stairs, and a burst of gunfire came out of the office door, sweeping the area in front of the door but not down the stairs. Whoever was up there obviously did not want to look. The lead unsnapped a frag grenade, pulled the pin, moved soundlessly toward the door, threw in the grenade and moved quickly back. An explosion ripped the room apart and the high man then darted into the room, spraying bullets. Two went into the head of the guard lying on the floor, making sure he was dead before the high man kicked his AK-47 into a corner. The Rangers looked for more guards, and then as quickly as it began, it was over.
“Kamigami would be having your ass right now if he was here,” the lead sergeant’s high man said.
“What for? It was goddamn perfect except for klutzo here falling on his face.” They were watching a Ranger bind up the leg of their wounded comrade.
“Bullshit. You didn’t clear the second team past the first-floor office. Next time …”
Stansell could see smoke billowing up from the prison as Mallard flew the C-130 across the roofs of Kermanshah at 240 knots. The pilot holding the plane straight and level at 800 feet above the ground, wracked the throttles back, slowing the cargo plane to 130 knots as they approached the airfield and lined up on the runway. “One minute warning.” Drunkin Dunkin’s voice carried over the intercom.
“We won’t come back this way,” Mallard said, “but nothing like a little low flyin’ to keep a fella’s head down and discourage unwanted guests.” Stansell silently agreed.
“Runway in sight,” Dunkin called. “Thirty-second warning.’. The loadmaster acknowledged the call. The Rangers were ready to storm the airfield.
The jumpmaster was standing at the left paratroop door, his head stuck out into the slipstream as he checked the field. He had flown enough practice jumps with Drunkin Dunkin to trust him, but this was combat and this particular jumpmaster had gone in with the Rangers in Grenada. He knew what could happen in combat so he did one last double-check himself. Dunkin had it wired. The C-130 slowed to 130 knots.
“Standby,” the jumpmaster bellowed at the runway clearing team. The seventeen men were split into two sticks and lined up on the ramp. They would not use the jump doors but go straight off the end of the ramp. The jumpmaster pointed at the first line. They were standing back-to-belly, right hands clenching their static lines, left hands against the man’s back in front. Their weapons were strapped to their sides, locked and loaded.
The green light by the jump doors switched from red to green as Dunkin yelled, “Green Light,” over the intercom.
“GO!” the jumpmaster shouted when he saw the first flicker of green. It was not the usual static line-jump with the men going out at one second intervals. The first stick of eight men ran off the ramp, pushing each other, the first two out of the plane before Dunkin had finished saying “green light.” The Rangers were so close that the deployment bag on the leader’s parachute hit the second man in the face. Two swings and they were on the ground.
The jumpmaster pointed at the second stick of nine jumpers and seven seconds later gave the next Go. Again, the men ran off the ramp, the last two out being unhappy Air Force sergeants — the Combat Control Team that would act like a control tower and clear the C-130s to land. “Hate group gropes,” one of the Air Force sergeants mumbled, but no one heard him and he landed 1,600 feet down the runway from the first stick.
Most of the Rangers hit the ground with a standard parachute landing-fall and absorbed the shock with a roll that started at the feet and up the leg to the buttocks and then to the upper back muscles. One Ranger did it on the wrong side of his body and came to his feet with a bent M-16. He shrugged off his harness, dropped the useless weapon, and ran for his first objective … to help clear and secure the only building on the deserted airstrip.
Other Rangers set up covering positions at each end of the runway while the remainder ran down the runway, throwing debris and rubbish off to the side as they checked its condition. Six men pushed an abandoned car that had its wheels removed off to one side, and the runway was clear. The Combat Control Team ran along the runway, carrying their portable UHF radios and also checking the condition of the runway. “It’s in great shape,” the controller said, “with a couple of brooms we can even land fighters if we have to.” They set up their radios, contacted Spectre 01 and cleared the C-130s to enter the landing pattern.
Harsh static exploded out of the small speaker in front of Cunningham, rasping at his nerves. The telelight confirmed that he was listening to channel one, the SatCom link to Mado aboard Spectre 01. He spun the volume knob down and looked over his console at the Air Force major sitting at the control panel below him in the next row, calmly working the buttons on the panel in front of her, trying to reestablish contact. The SatCom did not rely on the older KY-57 scrambler for security but used a rapidly shifting frequency rotation. Occasionally the receiver and transmitter frequency shifts drifted apart and had to be realigned; otherwise, only a grating noise could be heard, a perfect discouragement for unwanted listeners. The major keyed her mike: “Please standby while the system realigns.”