Force of Eagles (20 page)

As the group broke up, Cunningham cornered Camm and the Deputy Director for the CIA. “I think you should explore ways to get a player in place at Kermanshah to help Delta Force. If nothing else he can relay last minute intelligence and arrange an overland escape route if things go to hell in a handbasket.”

“General,” Camm answered, “we’re doing exactly what the President has directed—”

“But you can offer him valid alternatives to consider.”

Stony silence from the two men. The disgust that had been eating at Cunningham broke through. It was time, he decided, to send them a message. “If I find out that you two
gentlemen
haven’t done everything you can to help, I’ll personally fly the B-52 that’ll bomb your goddamn temple at Langley back to the Stone Age. Count on it, assholes.” He left then without waiting for an outraged reaction.

A phone call had alerted Cunningham’s aide that the general was upset, and Stevens was waiting in his office. “Dick,” Cunningham said, not sounding the least angry, “please ask Colonel Ben Yuriden to see me soonest.”

Yuriden was the Israeli air attaché.

*

Nellis AFB, Nevada

Stansell was waiting with Pullman for the C-130 carrying the first of the Rangers to taxi into the blocks. The battalion’s commander, a burly army officer, led his staff off the Hercules, marched up to Stansell and snapped a salute. “Lieutenant Colonel Leland Gregory.” Stansell studied the man in front of him as he returned the salute. Neatly tailored fatigues hid most of his expanding waistline, his round face seemed to glow. His big hand engulfed Stansell’s when they shook—the reason for Gregory’s moniker, “Ham.”

Gregory then introduced his headquarters staff—two company commanders and his Command Sergeant Major, Victor Kamigami. Stansell was stunned by the size of Kamigami, a huge Japanese-Hawaiian whose proportions approached those of a sumo wrestler.

Pullman shepherded the group to their headquarters in the three trailers he had commandeered, and Gregory and his group were quickly settled in and at work. “We’ve got two companies one hour behind us,” Gregory said. “Where do we bivouac?” Pullman explained how they were going to establish their training camp at Texas Lake and that the tents and equipment had been brought in the day before.

“Sir, I’ll take care of that,” Kamigami said. His voice was startlingly soft, incongruous with his size. Pullman arranged for a helicopter to fly Kamigami and the two company commanders to the dry lake to set up the camp, and at the last minute decided to go with them.

Stansell stopped by the trailers an hour later. “Colonel, we appreciate the trailers,” Gregory said. “The VOQ is full and we’re booked in at a motel downtown. We should have some rental cars for transportation here late today. Looking good.”

But it was all too routine for Stansell. “Colonel Gregory, I think we need to talk—inside.” He pointed to building 201. “Bring your key men.” Gregory motioned for his S-2, the staffs intelligence officer, and S-3, his operations officer, to follow them into the Intelligence vault, where Dewa spent her days. Bryant closed the door as they found seats.

“Our code name here is Task Force Alpha,” Stansell began. “I assume you know why you’re here and are all volunteers.”

Gregory nodded. “General Leachmeyer said Task Force Alpha is a training program for large-scale integrated rescue missions. We don’t need to ask for volunteers. This is what we’re all about.”

Stansell swallowed back a rising sense of frustration. “There’s more to it than routine training. We could”—will be, he wanted to say—“be called on for the real thing.”

The Army officers exchanged glances. The S-3, the tall major in charge of operations, shook his head. “Don’t bet on it, Colonel. Delta Force at Fort Bragg specializes in this type of operation. We always suck hind tit to them. And to the First Battalion, and to the Second…”

Stansell ignored it. “We’re on a tight schedule here. Colonel Gregory, you’re the ground commander. Your objectives are to assault a prison, free the prisoners held there, secure an airfield and get your Rangers and the prisoners to the airfield.”

“Right,” Gregory boomed, gung ho to be a field commander.

Stansell’s annoyance wouldn’t go away. He warned himself that he was getting hyper and had better wait and see how the Rangers performed before making a judgment. For the next two hours he watched as the men went over the mission, and Gregory said he would organize a composite rescue team to storm the prison and free the prisoners.

“We’ve got a dozen men who’ve been through the Special Ops School at Fort Bragg,” his operations officer said. “They can blow those doors open in a minute. We organize Lieutenant Jamison’s platoon into a composite rescue team—call it Romeo Team, ‘Romeo’ for ‘rescue.’”

“We need someone with more experience than a first lieutenant to head the team,” Gregory said. “Captain Trimler will have to be in command, Jamison his exec.”

Stansell started to feel a little better.

Pullman stuck his head in the door and motioned for Stansell to join him outside. “Damndest thing you’ve ever seen, Colonel. This Kamagami has got the camp almost up. When a platoon gets finished he’s having them do calisthenics, the old daily dozen, and finishes them off with a two-mile run.”

“Quite a top kick?”

“Colonel, he hardly says a word. Doesn’t need to.” Pullman then handed Stansell a message. “From General Mado. We’re getting three F- 11 Is in Monday, and Sundown has approved your request for F- 15s. We get one E model out of Luke and eight C models for escort. You get to choose the units and the pilots. Looking pretty good, Colonel.”

Stansell had to agree, but then why was his right ear demanding a scratching?

*

The White House

Admiral Scovill nodded at the naval officer sitting in an armchair outside the Oval Office reading a book. Scovill nodded in approval when he saw it was Hawking’s
A
Brief
History
of
Time
. The “football,” the soft leather bag carrying the nuclear launch codes, was in the chair beside him and the wrist chain was long enough for him to get comfortable. A boring job, following the President around with nothing to do. But the military aides who rotated the duty did not complain—after all, it was a path to promotion, and when you thought about it, you could say you had the whole world in your hand.

Andy Wollard, the President’s Chief of Staff, ushered the Chair-man of the Joint Chiefs into the office. Scovill was surprised to see Cyrus Piccard, Secretary of State, sitting on one of the couches next to the Secretary of Defense. Piccard had been at Geneva conducting the failing negotiations with the Iranians for the release of the POWs. The meeting late in the evening and the sudden appearance of Piccard could only mean one thing—something had gone very very wrong.

“Please sit down,” the President said. Scovill sat next to Mike Cagliari, the National Security Advisor, directly across from Bobby Burke, the Director of Central Intelligence. Wollard found a chair in a corner and would take voluminous notes. “Okay, Cy, lay it all out for us.”

“The talks are stalled. Hell, they’ve all but collapsed. The Libyans keep upping the bid for the hostages and I think the Iranians expect us to match it. It’s been coming apart ever since that press conference when Whiteside told the world what the Libyans were doing.”

“You’re not talking directly to the Libyans?” the President said quickly.

“Of course not, it’s all coming through a third party.”

“Who?”

“The Russians. Who else? The Libyans have the bid up to a mil-lion and a half dollars for each POW. The only good news is that the Iranians aren’t biting. At least not yet.”

“Any ideas why?”

“Internal politics, sir.” This from Burke, the Director of the CIA. “The Islamic Republican Party is trying to align with the IPRP to keep control of the Council of Guardians. But the IPRP wants half of the POWs as a sort of collateral. An Iranian show of good faith.”

“So it’s a rescue or nothing,” the President said. Determination had replaced long-felt frustration. “Terry, when will Delta Force be ready to go?”

“Fifteen to eighteen days,” Scovill answered.

“Why so long?”

“Mr. President,” the Secretary of Defense put in, “that’s not a long time to get a mission like this ready. And there are problems. First, the Iranians are moving an armored regiment into place forty-two miles from the POWs. We’ve got to find a way to block them. Second, Soviet agents have been sighted around Fort Bragg, where Delta Force is training.”

“What the hell is going on?” The President was looking at Burke. “I thought the Air Force was going to run cover for them?”

“It’s
glasnost
, Mr. President,” Burke told him, tight-lipped. “We have to reciprocate as things loosen up in the Soviet Union and our people are allowed to move around inside Russia. All of which gives the Soviets more freedom to move around over here. While we’re getting dividends in other areas, we’re paying for it by allowing them increased freedom of movement. Those agents are pros and they know where to look. They haven’t bitten on the Air Force cover and probably see it as a Red Flag exercise. We’re fairly certain they don’t know what Delta is preparing for but they’re curious. If the FBI rolls the agents up, the Russians will get even more interested.”

“Can we use the Air Force and Rangers at Nellis?”

“Doubtful, sir,” Scovill said. “They’re really a second team.”

“Okay, continue. Don’t leak anything as we originally planned. I want a tight security lid on this whole operation. Find a way to sneak Delta Force into position and keep the Air Force and Rangers at it. Cy, get back to Geneva and stall. If you have to, make it look like I’m seriously considering outbidding the Libyans. It will help give the Iranians a reason to keep the POWs together. Gentlemen, we’re fast running out of time on this one.”

Chapter 15: D Minus 20

Kermanshah, Iran

Mokhtari stomped up the steps to the third floor, two guards behind him. He wanted the POWs to hear his hard leather heels ringing, to let the fear of anticipation work for him. He moved down the wide corridor, stopping occasionally and having the guards throw open one of the twenty-six cell doors so he could see inside. He could have slipped the small shutter back that covered the barred window set into each door but that would have been too quiet. He wanted them to think he was picking someone at random.

“No, not that one,” he shouted in English, slamming a door shut. The tension and fear could be felt as he worked his way down the cell block. When Mokhtari tired of the game, he pointed to a cell. The guards threw the cell door back. The four men in the cell were sitting at attention on the edge of their bunks, as Mokhtari dictated they must be during the day. The two men on the top bunks were lucky because they did not have to keep their bare feet on the cold cement floor. To be caught talking to each other or not sitting at attention was worth a stay in the Box or a beating.

“Him.” Mokhtari pointed at Master Sergeant John Nesbit. The guards wrenched him to his feet. One hit him in the stomach. Then they dragged him out of the cell and down the stairs to the basement.

The men appointed as lookouts were already on the floor of their cells, peering through the gaps under their doors, monitoring the movement of the guards. Feet were off the floor and blankets un-folded as the men sought warmth. A warning tap by a lookout would send the entire floor back into position as Mokhtari’s regu-lations dictated. It was a carefully rehearsed routine and most of the men could fold a blanket quicker than a guard could unlock a door.

By the time Mokhtari had Nesbit in the basement a message was on its way to Leason’s cell. “What the hell…” Leason mumbled to himself as the tap code came through. His cellmate, Doc Landis, was still locked up in the administration building in the cell next to Mary Hauser. The reports reaching the colonel indicated the doc was okay but that Hauser had been raped.

Nesbit was a command post controller and an expert on communications equipment, codes and procedures. Mokhtari would either break the sergeant and make him talk or kill him. Leason considered if there would be a vital compromise of U.S. security if Nesbit told what he knew. “Vital, but not fatal,” he decided. He wanted to keep Nesbit alive, but he needed a way to pass that message to the sergeant. He tapped out a code asking for a volunteer to go into the box. Maybe one volunteer could do it if the guards threw the man into the right box—the one with a water pipe running up the back wall that made for an effective transmission line into the prison.

Within minutes he had his reply when he heard a voice shouting for the “muthafuckin’ guard.” It was Macon Jefferson, the skinny black kid from Cleveland who had pretzellike qualities and a street-bred contempt for authority.

“Jefferson, I’ll make it right when we get out of here,” Leason promised himself.

The guards quickly threw Jefferson headfirst into the Box. He held his body rigid, making them think it was a tight fit. Finally they got his feet in and slammed the door. His head was resting against the water pipe, and within minutes his two-word message, IN OK, had been relayed to Leason. Jefferson drew his legs up and started to squirm, twisting around. When he had his head against the door he felt for the nail that covered the peephole that had been bored out by previous occupants of the Box. Finally he had the nail out and a view of the basement.

The guards, he saw, had Nesbit sitting on the floor, legs straight out in front of him, ankles bound together, his hands behind his back. Jefferson could see the legs of a third man—Mokhtari, judging by the highly polished brown boots. For a few moments Jefferson could not tell what the guard at Nesbit’s back was doing. Actually the guard was retying the rope around the sergeant’s wrists. He took another length of rope and looped it around Nesbit’s elbows, then pulled the rope, drawing Nesbit’s elbows together behind his back. When the sergeant screamed the guard pulled the rope again, drawing Nesbit’s elbows closer together. And the sergeant screamed again.