Plutarsky couldn't believe the carnage around him. Only a few seconds before it had been a peaceful, quiet, rainy morning in Iran. Now, after one explosion, it was a burning nightmare. Had he been unconscious? He rested for a minute on his hands and knees until he heard footsteps nearby.
He raised his head and saw five men running toward the town of Robat, their arms full of M-16 rifles, ammo boxes, cases of rations and desert combat jackets. Plutarsky got to his feet and pulled his Beretta. "Halt. Stop." His voice barely sounded over the background noises of out-of-control fires and men calling and yelling, but all five of the running men stopped and turned toward him. They were Iranian revolutionary guards.
"Where the hell do you think you're going with—?"
Plutarsky stopped, felt a piece of metal touch his left temple and turned to find First Captain Shurab holding the muzzle of an M-16 rifle in his face. "Hello, Sergeant Polack."
There was a brief show of fear in Plutarsky's eyes, which pleased Shurab; then the fear was replaced with anger.
"Going somewhere?" Plutarsky said."
"It is insult for elite Muslim heroes to work like dogs for Polack inferiors. I am taking weapons and supplies to mountains. I will fight Soviets without American missiles." He started to back away from Plutarsky.
"You'd better pull the trigger, raghead," Plutarsky said, now looking directly into Shurab's eyes, " 'cause otherwise I'm going to track you down, skin your deserter hide and feed your carcass to the dogs."
Shurab stopped and shrugged. "All right, Sergeant." Plutarsky saw a flash of white light, felt a red-hot tongue of flame strike his face. Then nothing.
Marshal Govorov had predicted the fall of Bandar-Abbas would take two days. It took six. But the fall of the principal Iranian military stronghold guarding the Strait of Hormuz was now a certainty.
Only ten of the forty AS-6 Kingfish cruise missiles that had been launched against the twelve outer American rapid deployment force SAM emplacements north of Bandar-Abbas reached their targets, but the ten that had hit had devastated the area defenses. The whole Meydan Valley lay open as two of the three CAB missile sites protecting the valley were destroyed, and Soviet Backfire bombers rushed through the new opening. Carrying AS-6 cruise missiles themselves, as well as gravity bombs, the faster ground-hugging turbojet bombers quickly destroyed the fourteen I-Hawk missile batteries surrounding Bandar-Abbas. In two days Bandar-Abbas and the Strait of Hormuz lay completely unprotected.
Transport aircraft filled with elite Soviet army shock troops then flew unmolested down the Meydan Valley and landed on the outskirts of Bandar-Abbas. After four days of fierce combat, with a full division of Soviet troops massing around them, the rapid deployment forces evacuated Bandar-Abbas. With no land-based support left to them, the few American naval vessels in the southern Persian Gulf and in the Strait of Hormuz retreated to the protection of the Nimitz battle group, which in turn, because of a lack of shore support and increased AS-6 cruise-missile attacks, pulled back to the Gulf of Oman, nearly two hundred miles southeast of Bandar-Abbas. The Nimitz still controlled the Strait of Hormuz through the Gulf of Oman, but it was a shaky grip.
With unprecedented speed the drive to occupy Iran moved to completion. Armed opposition was sporadic: as in Afghanistan, opposition forces were run mostly by rival families or religious sects that fought with each other more than they fought the Soviet invaders. A few chemical weapon attacks against the natives in the mountains and central highlands were reported, but for the most part the Iranian people in the urban areas simply decided to follow the new government rather than risk being wiped out by the Soviets. To the Iranian people there was little difference between the rival factions: both retained their fundamental Islamic foundations; one was supported by the Soviet union, the other by the United States. For now the Soviets had the upper hand, so the people lined up with the winning side.
The result was that a new government quickly installed itself in Tehran.
To no one's surprise the new nation of Allah-al-Kastan, the Islamic Nation of God, was immediately recognized by the Soviet Union, but to everyone's surprise Syria and Iraq formally recognized the new government and suggested entering into negotiations to unify their countries under the laws of Islam. The long Iran-Iraq war came to an end, and representatives of the two governments signed a peace treaty soon afterward. Many other nations, not wanting a continuation of hostilities, also recognized the new government…
The Soviet invasion and takeover of Iran was complete, but the conflict was not over. The world watched as slowly and inexorably, the huge Arkhangel carrier battle group departed Cain Rahn Bay, Vietnam, bound for the Persian Gulf. The Brezhnev carrier group dominated the Persian Gulf, but it could not safely dock at any port in the gulf for fear of guerrilla or commando attack, nor, thanks to the Nimhz, could any replacement ships pass through the American blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.
The world knew that the Arkhangel was coming to break the blockade, once and for all.
CHAPTER 32
The meeting of Space command officers and crewmen was called to attention as General Martin Stuart, commander of the Space Command, entered the small conference room. Under more normal circumstances, Stuart would have told everyone to be seated immediately, but this time he was silent. He took his seat at the head of the Oval conference table, and motioned for the others to do likewise, remaining silent as the room quieted down.
Jason Saint-Michael sat alone, on the left side of the table from Stuart, as if he represented some sort of contagion. Dr. Matsui, his flight surgeon, sat behind him, almost as if disassociating himself from his patient.
Across from Saint-Michael sat a small group of Space Command officers. Ann Page was among them, seated alongside shuttle mission specialist Captain Marty Schultz. Schultz's customary youthful grin was gone. Ann looked uneasily, almost furtively, from General Stuart and back to Saint-Michael.
"All right," Stuart began, "we're here to select a crew to return to Armstrong Station on the spaceplane America, recover the bodies of the dead crewmen, then detach the Skybolt module from the station and attach a PAM payload booster to it and send it to a higher storage orbit until it can be retrieved via shuttle. This sortie must be accomplished within the next eight days, before Armstrong reenters earth's atmosphere. Let's get started." Stuart opened four folders on the desk in front of him, scanned them, but returned his attention to Jason Saint-Michael. "You're recommending these crewmen for the rescue sortie, General?"
"Yes, sir." Saint-Michael nodded to the most senior officer across the table from him. "Colonel Jonathan Hampton is the only choice as pilot, He's the senior hypersonic transportation system pilot in the command besides myself." He even spelled out HTS for them. "Only two sorties aboard America and one station docking, but one year as operations officer of the HTS cadre and one year as a simulator instructor at Little Rock… Major Ken Horvath as first officer was a choice among many qualified people. He topped out best in examination and simulator scores of all recent HTS-school graduates… Captain Schultz was again the only real choice of all volunteers for this trip. He's qualified both as an HTS and shuttle-flight engineer and payload specialist. He also had a special claim for being included on this flight: he crewed with Colonels Will and Sontag aboard Enterprise for most of his career…"
"Can you give me your assurance, Captain Schultz," General Stuart said, "that the… personal nature of this duty won't affect your performance?"