“I don’t know,” said McGuire. “We don’t have any communication.”
McGuire told the Delta squadron commander about the problem with his helicopter. He said he thought the working hydraulic system was sufficiently trustworthy for him to continue.
When at last the final two choppers landed, it was cause for quiet celebration. It was one-thirty in the morning, which gave them just enough time to get everything done and hidden before full daylight. They had the required six. Some members of the assault force exchanged high fives. Seiffert soon had them maneuvering into position behind the four C-130s to refuel. Their wheels made deep tracks in the fine sand and the turning rotors whipped violent dust storms. It was deafening with all the rotors and propellers running. The truck fire was still burning brightly.
Beckwith, impatient to get going, climbed into the cockpit of the last chopper to land and tried to get the attention of Seiffert, who was coordinating these maneuvers on the radio with his pilots.
“Request permission to load, skipper,” said Beckwith. “We need to get with it.”
“Hey, remember me?” he asked.
Seiffert either didn’t hear him or ignored him. The colonel slapped his helmet.
Seiffert took off his helmet and confronted Beckwith angrily.
“I can’t guarantee we’ll get you to the next site before first light.”
“I don’t care,” said Beckwith.
Seiffert told him to go ahead and load his men.
Because they were transferring from the plane to choppers, Fitch and his men had been carrying all their own gear as they hauled the camouflage netting. In some cases men were carrying well over eighty pounds—Fitch himself was hauling ninety-five extra pounds of gear on his two-hundred-pound frame. They were eager to get settled on the choppers. When he got word, the major told his team to begin loading the camouflage netting and themselves on the choppers and went off to retrieve the men he had left guarding the bus passengers. Supervision of the Iranians was given to Carl Savory, the Delta surgeon. Doc Savory, a less experienced shooter than his Delta comrades, had been guarding the passengers for some time before one of the other men pointed out that he had forgotten to put the magazine in his weapon.
Beckwith was moving from chopper to chopper, urging things forward, when another of the marine pilots stepped out and said, “The skipper told me to tell you we only have five flyable helicopters. That’s what the skipper told me to tell you.”
Looking around, the colonel could see that the rotor on one of the Sea Stallions had stopped turning. They had shut it down.
It was precisely what the Delta commander had feared: These pilots are determined to scuttle this mission. It had not been lost on the other commanders working with him, most of whom outranked Beckwith, that the pugnacious colonel regarded them all as inferiors, as supporting players. The pilots, the navigators, the aircrews, the fuel equipment operators, the rangers, the combat controllers, the spies in Tehran, even the generals back at Wadi Kena…they were all ordinary mortals, squires, spear-carriers, water boys. Their job was to serve Delta, to get his magnificent men in place for their rendezvous with destiny. All along he had been impatient and suspicious of the other services and units involved; they lacked experience, nerve, and skill. They were screwups. He had little appreciation of the heroic difficulties they faced—indeed, most of the mission planners regarded getting Delta in and out of Tehran as the hardest piece of the job—so now, when things began to go sour, Beckwith felt not just disappointment and anger, but contempt. These piddling, gutless amateurs—the colonel was a master of the blunt, insulting adjective—were stepping on his glory. They weren’t getting him there! He oozed scorn.
When he found Kyle, he bellowed, “That goddamn number two helo has been shut down! We only have five good helicopters. You’ve got to talk to Seiffert and see what he says. You talk their language—I don’t.”
Beckwith didn’t see mechanical problems; he saw faltering courage in the pilots. He said as much to Kyle, grumbling that the flyers were looking for excuses not to go.
The comment burned the air force officer, who had been contending for months with Beckwith’s gruff hauteur. He knew better than to argue with him. The helo captains had the same kind of responsibilities as Beckwith, and Kyle better understood their concerns. They were responsible for getting their own crews in and out safely, not to mention themselves. No one knew their machines as well as they did, because they literally bet their lives on them every time they flew. Seiffert had made his decision. One of the hydraulic pumps on McGuire’s chopper was shot and they had no way to fix it. Kyle asked if it would be possible to fly with just the remaining one, and Seiffert had told him emphatically, “No! It’s unsafe! If the controls lock up, it becomes uncontrollable. It’s grounded!”
When Fitch returned from rounding up the rest of his men, he was surprised to find that his second in command, Captain E. K. Smith, was still waiting with his squadron in the dust. He told Smith to get the men on the choppers.
“The mission is an abort,” said Smith.
“What do you mean, it’s an abort?”
“Colonel Beckwith said it’s an abort,” said Smith. He explained that McGuire’s chopper was damaged and couldn’t fly. This contradicted what McGuire had told Fitch, that the chopper was damaged but flyable. Beckwith was such a hothead that it was entirely possible he had said something like that with only half the story.
“E.K., I’m not doubting your word, but I’m going to see Beckwith about this,” he said.
The abort scenario, which they had rehearsed, called for Fitch and his men to board not helicopters but one of the fuel birds. The choppers would fly back to the carrier and the planes would return to Masirah. He told Smith to prepare the men to get on the plane but said to wait until he returned.
It wasn’t easy finding the colonel in the noise and swirling dust. One of the things they had failed to build into the plan was some kind of clearly defined rallying point or command center. It took some wandering, but Fitch eventually found Beckwith, huddled with Burruss, Kyle, and the other mission commanders, outside one of the C-130s with a satellite radio.
“What’s going on?” Fitch shouted over the din.
“Well, Seiffert said that helicopter can’t fly, that it’s not mission capable, and we’re down to five,” Beckwith said, disgusted.
Kyle and the chopper crews said they were ready to proceed with five helicopters, but that would require trimming the assault force down by twenty men. Beckwith refused. “We all go or nobody goes,” he said.
The decision was passed up the chain to Washington, where Secretary of Defense Brown relayed the bad news to Brzezinski in the White House. The national security adviser, who only minutes earlier had been told all six choppers were refueling and the mission was proceeding as planned, was stunned. He quickly assessed what he knew and engaged in a little wishful thinking. He imagined Beckwith, who had been so gung ho in his visit to the White House, fuming in the desert, eager to proceed but stymied by more cautious generals in the rear. He wanted Brown to ask the commanders on the ground if they were prepared to go ahead with fewer than six choppers. Brzezinski urged Carter to have Brown at least raise the question.
In the din of Desert One, Beckwith, Kyle, Burruss, and the other commanders received Brzezinski’s request and reconsidered. It angered the colonel even to be asked; he felt as if his judgment and commitment were being questioned. Nevertheless, he asked Fitch, Burruss, and the others, “Can we make it with fewer aircraft?”
“Sir, we have been through this in rehearsals,” said Fitch. “Who are we going to leave behind?”