“Damnit,” Leachmeyer shouted, “get a clear transmission or we’ll get someone in here who can.”
“I’m in manual override now. One moment.”
Cunningham leaned toward Leachmeyer, who was sitting next to him. “It’s a system limitation. She’ll sort it out.” On cue, Mado’s voice came through crisp and clear.
“Roundup, this is Blue Chip,” the major transmitted, “please repeat your last transmission.” Cunningham liked the way she had handled the situation.
“Blue Chip, this is Roundup,” Mado answered. “Romeo Team secured the prison at 0303 Zulu. The airfield was secured at 0311 Zulu.” A ragged cheer broke out over the main floor.
“They’re ahead of schedule,” Dewa told the general. Her eyes were on the master clock as she counted the minutes. She did not need to consult a briefing book to follow the mission’s timetable, it was etched into her head. Ninety minutes on the ground …
Cunningham noted that they were receiving objective accomplishment times between three and eleven minutes late. Not too bad, he thought.
“I want a head count,” Leachmeyer ordered, “and start moving the POWs in five minutes. Use the jeeps on the C-130s if you have to.”
Dewa shook her head. “General Cunningham, the C-130s are still landing and they need those jeeps to secure the road. There’s a vital highway intersection — Objective Red — near the prison that we have to control. It seals off the western approach to the prison—”
“Charlie”—Cunningham interrupted her to settle Leachmeyer down—“let them do it as planned. They’ll move the POWs when they’re ready. We’re not running the show.” He could see the President over Leachmeyer’s shoulder. He was pacing back and forth in the Command and Authority Room, obviously agitated, wanting to control the action.
“Delta Force would be out of there by now,” Leachmeyer grumbled.
“They’d be fighting for their lives,” Cunningham shot back, “because every swingin’ dick in Iran would’ve known they were coming. Christ, Charlie, why do you think we sent Task Force Alpha in? Now let them do their job.”
Two-man teams of Rangers were working down the long corridor of each floor, testing the cell doors to see if they were unlocked and throwing open the small shutters set in each door to check on the inmates. Each Ranger had a list of the POWs and methodically checked off names. Outside, the guards who survived the attack were huddled in a corner of the quadrangle. Two were seriously wounded. Trimler had turned the first-floor guards’ office into a command post while his RTO established contact with Roundup in the orbiting AC-130.
“Sir,” a Ranger checked in. “Head count on first floor complete. We count ninety-seven, including Colonel Leason.”
Another Ranger pounded up the stairs from the basement. “Captain, we’ve got a casualty in the basement. A guard shot a POW before we could secure our area.” The man was obviously shaken. “God … it’s a torture chamber down there … the poor bastard was shoved in a box no bigger than a wall locker …”
“The POW?” Trimler asked, his anger scarcely under control. “Dead, sir. We’re getting him out now.”
“The guard?”
“Four holes in him, sir. He’s still alive.”
“Bring the body up.” Trimler’s anger was surging. “Get the first-floor guard in here. Now.” A few moments later the guard was shoved into the room, his ankles were unshackled but the adhesive tape was still over his mouth and his wrists were handcuffed behind his back. Bill Carroll skidded around the corner right behind him with a young Iranian in tow.
“Who the hell …” Trimler barked.
“This is Mustapha Sindi,” Carroll said. “I told you about him. Leads the Kurds. The trucks are outside.”
Trimler turned to the guard and pointed to the central control box that unlocked the cell doors on the first floor. “Open it,” he said. Fear and confusion ran across the guard’s face as he shook his head no. Mustapha let loose a barrage in Farsi and ripped the adhesive off his mouth. The guard paled, spoke a few words.
“Free his hands,” Carroll told them. “He’ll do it.”
“What the hell did he say?” Trimler asked.
“Mustapha told him he had two choices: open the doors and live or meet Mulla Haqui. Of course he would also live if he met Haqui”—there was no humor in Carroll’s voice—“for two more days of torture.” The guard was freed and rapidly punched the four-digit combination into the control box. A green light flashed on and the guard pulled a lever. They could hear the central-locking bar that ran along the tops of the cell doors slide back. The first floor was free.
“Get Leason in here and load ‘em,” Trimler ordered. “Do another head count as you load. We’ll move them as soon as the road is secured.” He turned to his RTO. The man was ready and told him that he had established contact with the AC-130 gunship on the PRC-77. “Relay our status,” Trimler told him. “Trucks in place, ninety-seven POWs being loaded, will move them out when the road is secured.”
Two more Rangers appeared in the door. “Ninety-five on the second floor,” the first one told them.
“Eighty-seven on the third.” This from the last Ranger.
“Counting the POW in the basement,” Trimler said, “that adds up to two hundred and seventy-nine. We’re three short.”
Another voice: “They’re accounted for.” It was Leason, the senior ranking officer. The men gaped at him: dirty and haggard, barefoot, clothes ripped and torn. “Staff Sergeant Macon Jefferson was executed. Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Landis and Captain Mary Hauser are being held in the basement of the administration building.”
Carroll bolted out of the room, closely followed by Mustapha.
Another Ranger reported in, “Problems, sir. We can’t unlock the cell doors on the second and third floors.”
Duck Mallard flew his C-130 down final, its nose in the air. He planted the main gear twenty feet beyond the spot the Combat Control Team had told him to use as a touchdown point, drove the nose down and ripped the throttles full aft, lifting them over the gate and throwing the props into reverse. He stomped the brakes and dragged the heavy plane to a halt in less than eighteen hundred feet.
Before the plane had slowed, the rear door under the tail was up and the ramp down. Mallard paused on the runway for a moment as the ramp came full down and two motorcycles and three heavily loaded jeeps drove off. The drivers were careful as they deplaned, but the moment they were clear of the ramp they mashed the accelerators and sped away. They were the first of the Ratsos, the jeep teams who had to secure the road.
Mallard then taxied off the runway onto hard ground, where one of the sergeants on the Combat Control team had marshaled him. The second C-130 was already touching down.
The two modified dirt bikes led the three jeeps off the airfield and turned down the dirt road that led to the prison. The jeep teams took spacing and started to talk to each other on their MX-360 radios. Each Ratso was a mobile firing platform. An M-60 machine gun was mounted on a post in the back seat and another on the hood in front of the passenger seat. Besides carrying four men, the jeeps were stuffed with four light antitank weapons, claymore mines, and four Dragons — medium range antitank missiles that could reach out over a thousand yards and be carried by one man.
At the first intersection the lead motorcycle deliberately took the wrong turn and scouted up the road while the others sped by. He didn’t see any traffic so he raced after the jeeps that were following a gravel road that looped around the southeastern edge of town. Another team behind them would guard that intersection. They had to pass the prison and reach Objective Red, the main intersection on the southern edge of town where the road to the prison junctioned with the main highway between Kermanshah and Shahabad. The intersection was in a low pass formed by hills on both sides of the highway, and if the armored regiment garrisoned at Shahabad moved, they would come through the pass to the intersection.