Rogue Forces

“Excuse me, sir, but I must prepare my troops for battle,” Jaffar said, bowing to Vice President Phoenix. “Colonel Wilhelm, I must thank you for keeping Nahla secure in my absence. May I rely on you and your men to keep Nahla secure as we deploy, as you already have?”

“Of course,” Wilhelm said. “And I’d like to attend your deployment briefings, if I could.”

“You are always welcome, Colonel. You will be notified. Good night.” And Jaffar departed, with Patrick, Wayne, and Jon behind him.

“You still think this is a good idea, General?” Wilhelm asked before they left. “Jaffar’s fighting for his country. What are you fighting for now? The money?”

Jaffar froze, and they could see him clench and unclench his fists and straighten his back in indignation, but he did not do or say anything. But Patrick stopped and turned to Wilhelm. “You know what, Colonel?” Patrick said with a slight smile. “The Iraqis haven’t paid me a dime. Not one dime.” And he departed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

There are no great people in this world, only great challenges which ordinary people rise to meet.

—ADMIRAL WILLIAM FREDERICK HALSEY, JR. (1882–1959)

NEAR ALLIED AIR BASE NAHLA, IRAQ

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING

The two eight-man teams of Turkish bordo bereliler, or Maroon Beret, special operations Rangers arrived on station at about three A.M. They had executed a picture-perfect HALO, or high-altitude low-opening parachute jump, into the area about five miles north of Tall Kayf. After landing and stowing their parachutes, they verified their position, checked personnel, weapons, and gear, and headed south. Once near the checkpoint about two miles from the XC-57 crash site, they split up into two-man recon teams and proceeded to their individual objective points.

It took less than thirty minutes for the Maroon Berets to determine that all of the intel passed to them from Captain Evren’s unit stationed outside Allied Air Base Nahla was true: the Iraqis had deployed four infantry platoons around the XC-57 crash site and were setting up sandbag machine gun nests to guard it. The rest of the brigade was nowhere to be seen. Evren had also reported that the Americans were still inside the base, training and conditioning but remaining very low profile as well.

The Iraqis were obviously expecting something to happen, the Ranger platoon leader thought, but they weren’t putting up more than a token defense. They obviously weren’t looking for a fight over the reconnaissance plane. The Rangers could stop their operation if the Iraqis had deployed any more forces in the area, but they hadn’t. The operation was still on.

The timetable was razor-thin, but everyone was executing it perfectly. Aviation elements of First and Second Divisions had sent squadrons of light infantry in low-flying UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook helicopters from six different directions, all converging in the area around Nahla, under the protection of AH-1 Cobra helicopter gunships. The helicopters came in under a blanket of jamming across the entire electromagnetic spectrum that cut off all radar and communications other than bands they wished to use. At the same time ground forces were rushing in to reinforce them. In less than thirty minutes—the blink of an eye, even on a modern battlefield—the four Iraqi platoons surrounding the XC-57 crash site were surrounded themselves…and outnumbered.

The Iraqi defenders, using night-vision goggles, could see the red lines of Turkish laser designators crisscrossing the field ahead of them, and they hunkered down behind sandbag machine gun nests and the XC-57 wreckage. The assault could begin at any moment.

“Attention, Iraqi soldiers,” they heard in Arabic from a loudspeaker aboard a Turkish armored infantry vehicle, “this is Brigadier General Ozek, commander of this task force. You have been surrounded, and I am bringing in more reinforcements as I speak. I order you to—”

And at that moment one of the Chinook helicopters that had just touched down to off-load soldiers disappeared in a tremendous fireball, followed by a Cobra gunship that was hovering a few hundred yards away on patrol and a Black Hawk helicopter that had just lifted off. The entire horizon to the north and northeast of the XC-57 crash site suddenly seemed as if it was on fire.

“Carsi, Carsi, this is Kuvvet, we are taking heavy fire, direction unknown!” the Second Division task force commander radioed. “Say ETE. Over!” No response. The general looked over his left shoulder toward Highway Three, which his eastern battalion should have been racing up to flank the Iraqis…

…and through his night-vision goggles he saw an eerie glow on the horizon about three miles behind him—and the flickering of some very large objects burning and exploding. “Carsi, this is Kuvvet, say your pos!”