Ramrod intercept, p.22
Ramrod Intercept, page 22
“Copy. Start counting…let’s see…”
Grimaldi, he knew, was checking his instruments, McCarter already feeling the big warbird dipping.
“Ninety seconds, then hit the ramp.”
MCCARTER SHUFFLED up to the ramp, bootstrap dragging his weapons housing. He forged into the wind gust right behind Manning as the big Canadian sailed away from the ramp. Even though they were flying in from the west, coming in on the blind side of the conflagration, the Briton could see the lay of the land glowing from the raging firestorms to the east.
Time to go.
Time to hunt down whatever fanatics were left standing, crawling or staggering about in the ruins of their terrorist bastion, and blast them back into the inferno.
McCarter shuffled up the last two steps, and jumped.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Qeshm
Ruballah took it as a sign, a divine blessing indeed, that he was still alive, untouched, in fact, when so much death was strewed for as far as he could see.
It was nothing short, he found, of a sea of bodies, graveyards of burning wreckage where a sprawling military installation once stood proud.
Everything in flames, ruins, the roar of hungry fire all around a hateful reminder that his dreams were in jeopardy, poised at the edge of extinction. The stink of roasting flesh assaulted his nostrils, an invisible force that nearly knocked him off his feet. Severed limbs, he saw next, panning on the carnage, his heart racing with fury, spying then the scattering of burning mummies jutting up from the sand in frozen postures of death.
Nothing short of vengeance was called for.
“You must go! Into the bunker!”
One of the soldiers was barking at him, but Ruballah didn’t budge at first, nursing the fires of his hatred for this cowardly attack on the Iranian military complex. Every last aircraft was nothing but a flaming shell, if it hadn’t been blown to obliterated pieces of scrap. Craters, the size of half a city block, coughed up clouds of black smoke from all over the compound and airfield. Whatever troops were left alive came running up the dune, most of them now barreling through maws of concrete housings that led to the underground bunker.
Some of the living, he next discovered, might have been better off if they’d been incinerated outright, or blown into countless bits and pieces of raw meat. He froze at the sound of all the wailing of horribly wounded soldiers, bansheelike cries that echoed from the inferno, the call of the damned. They reeled about, framed like broken mannequins in the raging bands of fire, a few charred stubs for hands stretching out, beseeching. Their pitiful moans for help fell on deaf ears. Other shadows, stumbling forth from the outer reaches of the screaming fires, were missing arms, while a few of them appeared completely limbless as they crawled on their bellies through the sand, great streams of dark red pumping from where their legs had been sheared off at the hip or the knee.
Then there was the dreadful steady soughing of wind, a superheated gale lashing his face, born from and blowing out in all directions from any number of the firestorms. He almost couldn’t believe what he witnessed next, but two soldiers near the inferno that was the airfield were stumbling away from the fire, somehow spared, a miracle of sorts.
Or so it first appeared to Ruballah.
They plodded ahead, desperate puppets, being tugged back by what struck Ruballah as an invisible vacuum, the firestorm like some great sucking machine.
Or a magnet.
He watched, a morbid fascination mixed with fury rising in his chest, as they screamed out, dragged next by the winds, foot by foot, until they swirled, lifted off their bellies actually, and were swallowed into the inferno.
“Go!”
Ruballah went, but he was coming back out, he determined, as soon as they believed the air bombardment had ceased.
And what would be left?
He prayed that at least the gunboat he had hidden had been spared. Yes, he would crawl back out of this hole, he told himself, and if that boat was still in one piece, he would take the helm, ride out, full throttle, and fine the first ship that came into view.
There was no choice. “They” had left him nothing but the fire of his hatred, something that could only be expunged by vengeance.
It would come, in time, very soon, he vowed, even if that meant he would become a martyr in the next few hours. Anything, he thought, was better than burrowing himself like some rat in a hole, quaking in fear, waiting for the next round of bombs to shake and eat up more of Qeshm. Ruballah plunged through the doorway, descending into the bowels of the bunker, to stay put, wait it out until he was sure the immediate danger had passed.
When it did, he would find a target, even if that meant running from the devils in the sky, under fire.
MCCARTER BELIEVED a soldier made his own luck, but he took it as a stroke of good fortune, believing the gods of covert war were smiling on all of them, when he found Grimaldi had made the right call. It meant a little longer hike, but anything was preferable to landing in a mass furnace, torched alive, nothing left to do but let the fire eat them to the bones. The sand, a bonus, however he looked at it, cushioned what would have normally been a hard landing, the risk of hitting solid earth always involving the potential for a sprained or broken ankle.
Well, Phoenix Force had landed, square, on its feet, and good to go, as Manning had patched through.
On the way.
And the sky was burning in the distance, calling them to move in and clean up whatever was left moving.
McCarter was out of his chute pack, weapons claimed from the nylon housing, when the four shadows of Phoenix Force came loping over the dune. They were keeping the weapons basic this go-a-round. M-16/M-203 combos to a man, ten pounds of plastic explosive in satchels, just in case someone chose to circle whatever wagon might be left standing. Encizo would pull double duty with the multiround projectile launcher. Harnesses then, pouches in combat blacksuits hung and stuffed with a mixed bag of frag, incendiary and flash-stun grenades, spare clips for any protracted engagement or the need to burn down a small army. Holstered Beretta 93-Rs as side arms, all around, finished up the killing goods.
McCarter heard his com link buzz with Major Sabol’s gravel voice. “Alpha One to X Squad commander, come in.”
“Commander Mac, here.”
“Sitrep.”
“All present and accounted for, sir. We’re assembling now.”
“We’re under heavy fire on this end,” Sabol informed McCarter, shouting over the racket of automatic-weapons fire coming over the com link. “Small arms, but we’re bogged down for the time being. Linkup schedule off! Confirm!”
“I copy.”
“Touching base to make sure you and your people landed in one piece.”
“Affirmative.”
“Then move out! I’ll be in touch.”
“Let’s roll, mates.”
McCarter led the way up the dune. Topping the rise, he figured they were maybe a two-klick jaunt until they ventured up to the foot of the great firestorm.
And went to work.
Even at that distance, he could feel a heat so intense it stung his face, singed his eyes. Almost, he thought, as if the firestorm itself were alive and kicking, angry at the living and looking to devour.
Stony Man Farm, Virginia
“I COUNTED eight.”
Brognola found Wethers pinning him with a strange look as the former professor’s fingers flew over the key boards, using the satellite to scan the Gulf.
“What?” Brognola nearly choked on his cigar stub, aware already of what Wethers was trying to tell him.
“I counted eight gunboats before the strike.”
“You’re telling me one’s missing,” Brognola growled, rolling toward the man’s workstation, peering so hard at the monitor, nerves so jangled it took him a full few seconds to get his eyes refocused. “Or moving out into the Gulf?”
“There it is. It’s tucked away in an inlet,” Wethers said.
“How did we miss that?” Brognola wanted to know.
“In the confusion of the moment,” Kurtzman offered. “It happens.”
“It damn well better not happen,” Brognola growled. “Raise David and let him know about our missing suicide ship. Keep an eye on it. If it moves out, raise Jack and have him fly back and blow the damn thing clear to Saudi Arabia!”
Qeshm
“I COPY. Just let us know if any hostiles are moving for it,” McCarter told the Farm over his satlink tie-in. “Me and the troops are sort of busy at the moment. Later.”
The Briton didn’t have time to ponder any horrifying scenario of a suicide boat racing out to the Gulf.
There was horror and problems enough greeting the men of Phoenix Force as they came over the dune and marched closer to the firestorm.
Phoenix Force crouched at the rise of the dune, spread out in a skirmish line. McCarter heard the voices shouting in Farsi, two soldiers pounding on the steel door leading to the bunker, eleven o’clock, thirty meters out.
They wanted in.
They were taken out.
A stream of five converging leadstorms nearly obliterated the two Iranians, blowing them open, gutted like fish, from head to crotch.
McCarter was counting up another dozen or so shadows, seeking shelter behind the concrete housing, firing off bursts from their AK-47s and AKMs, when he gave the order, “Blow it!”
It was overkill, to be sure, but McCarter didn’t care to get stymied by some standoff, wasting bullets while some larger force, he suspected, was dug in below.
Which meant Phoenix Force would have to blow the door down and descend to root the enemy out.
Five 40 mm hellbombs chugged away, then merged into one mushroom cloud downrange, impacting as nearly one blast. Moving out, leading the charge, McCarter peered into the thick wall of smoke, found nothing left of the housing but a few jagged concrete teeth at its base.
He reached the pile of bodies and severed body parts, the air choked with toasted human flesh, burning fuel, emptied bowels.
The smells of war and death, he knew.
He was searching for any straggling wounded—no takers he could find out there in the lake of fire and wreckage—when he spotted the two fifty-five-gallon drums. It was nothing short of a fluke that both barrels had been launched from some point near the inferno, riding it out, before they landed, impaled into the sand at a near forty-five-degree angle.
McCarter told Encizo, “Move it out, Rafe! Find the openings to the ventilation shafts! Gary, go with him! Let me know the minute you find them and stand by! Cal, T.J., give me a hand with these drums!”
It was pure muscle work, but they had the drums rolled up moments later, resting on the broken lip leading down a short flight of steps to yet another steel door.
“Let’s get these uncapped and dump them!”
James bared a grim smile, but there was nothing other than a steely edge in his voice as he said, “If we’re about to do what I think we are, didn’t I see this somewhere before?”
“You did at that,” McCarter grunted back, twisting the cap off the first drum, the stink of high-grade aircraft fuel squeezing into his nose as he sloshed the flammable liquid down the steps. “And it worked for Lee Marvin, didn’t it?”
THEY WOULD HAVE MISSED the first ventilation pipe altogether if it hadn’t been for the fact the sky was on fire above them, lighting the way as clear as if a dozen klieg lights were beaming through the night.
Encizo crouched beside the pipe, which was sticking no more than six inches out of the sand. He swiveled his head, watching as Manning scurried up a long rise in a dune so high it appeared to touch the umbrella of firelight. Manning was little more than a flickering shadow, but Encizo clearly saw the thumbs-up as the big Canadian found another air pipe.
Encizo had some idea what McCarter was set to unleash. If they didn’t burn them all down in the bunker, then it stood to reason there was an exit, some back-door escape hatch. Probably, he figured, over on the other side of the dune. The terror of being burned alive or buried under tons of rubble and steel might flush out anyone quick enough to make the dash for freedom, but that left Encizo wondering just how many Iranian fanatics were down there, and how many would come out shooting.
And where.
He patched through to McCarter. “We’ve found two. Running, so far, in a straight northerly line.”
“Meaning there’s more. On my count. Start dropping a mix of incendiary and frag down the chute. Three to a hole. Find the other ventilator shafts, on the run, and both of you use every last egg.”
Encizo felt the tight smile stretch his lips. “Didn’t I see this in the—”
“Get busy!”
“Aye, aye!”
Encizo relayed the word to Manning, then started plucking grenades off his webbing.
RUBALLAH SNATCHED UP the first AK-47 he saw when he heard the screams, the shooting, followed by the massive explosion. Sounds of more death, he thought, aware some invading force of infidels was right then ready to blast its way into the bunker.
He was sick of what he had seen anyway. All around in the chamber the wounded were gasping for help, some of them with punctured lungs, wheezing for air, while others clutched at the free-spouting blood from a missing arm or hand before toppling over, left unattended where they fell. In the few minutes he’d been holed up with maybe twenty-five or so survivors from the bombing, the less seriously mangled who had a slim chance at survival had been given shots of black-market heroin.
Just to keep them quiet and still, he thought, allow him, at the very least, to clear out that awful pathetic moaning from memory, let him think straight.
It was time to rally the survivors. “Listen to me!” he shouted at the soldiers, and those few left alive who were part of the Islamic Free Movement of Iran. “Out the back! Go out shooting! I am going to the harbor! God willing, one boat is left.”
A tinny clang from above, and he looked up, wondering what new horror was next. Two more grenades bounced up, he saw, rattling around the screen before they settled in next to the first motionless egg.
Ruballah broke into a sprint, fleeing the chamber. It was something like another forty meters or so before he made the back door. A stampede sounded behind him, and he knew they needed no further encouragement to leave the bunker.
Exit first, if they got that far, he feared. And how many enemy gunman were lying in wait outside?
He would find out soon enough, and gathered speed before the crush of his charging brothers in jihad on his heels beat him to the exit, trampling him on the way out.
There was too much left to be done, he thought. He wouldn’t be cheated of his glory, and prayed, on the run, to be delivered from the infidels outside.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
McCarter keyed the bottom com-link button, told Encizo and Manning, “Go!”
The Phoenix Force leader, James and Hawkins, stepped back as a trio, about fifteen paces and began to lob a combination of frag and incendiary grenades down the well. Three apiece, McCarter figured, should not only bring the door down, but with the fuel he’d seen damming up against the entrance, a firestorm would ignite. With any luck a lake of fire, touched off by the blast, would go washing into the bunker, setting off the panic, driving them out whatever the exit hatch. A further blessing in the wings could be ammo, explosives stored up, rows of crates maybe, piled high in the rat’s nest below.
The whole works, uprooted, if it was a ten-strike, skybound.
They were hauling it triple-time up the dune when the deafening mesh of detonating grenades rocked the air. The fireballs screamed out of the hole, rising as one into the air, a giant devil’s tongue, driving the scorching heat up behind them, hurling the stink of burning fuel and more cooked flesh up their noses.
M-16’s swinging around, they searched the upswing of the sandy knoll. North, grim satisfaction settling into his bones, McCarter spotted the fingers of fire jetting up, squeezed out the ventilation pipes, shrieking up and onward from what he hoped was one long message of doom for the rats below.
It should have become a fiery tomb down there, but McCarter and the other commandos weren’t about to lolligag around and leave the rest of it to chance.
McCarter ventured back a few yards toward the latest inferno, inspecting their latest effort. No point in going down that way, he knew. And only the most desperate of their enemies would dare attempt a crazed rush out of that burning hole.
Which told McCarter if there was any way out it would be someplace else. North, east, or west, but he figured if the ventilation shafts were running due north, then whatever charge they made would come from that direction.
There would be survivors, runners; he was certain of that, those lucky few, either galvanized to act, bail, save themselves, whether out of cowardice, terror or desperation. No matter what drove them out into the stinking air of death and destruction, the Briton wanted to be on hand, set to crank it up, when the human vipers slithered out of the hole.
“Let’s go find our good mates, Mr. R. and Mr. M.,” McCarter said, and headed off for another showdown with the enemy.
With their world burning down around them, something warned the Phoenix Force leader the Iranians were saving the worst for last.
MANNING FLOPPED to his belly, and held back on the trigger of his M-16 A-4, cranking out the streams of 5.56 mm lead in long chattering sweeps, taking them down as fast as they popped out of the hole.
They found exit, a good eighty-yard run from the first ventilation shaft, barely beat the Iranians to the starting line. The grenades were going off, Manning feeling the ground tremble beneath him, but the Iranians were streaming out the back door by the fours and fives, beating the rumble and the blasts by mere heartbeats, if the big Canadian gauged the distances between the shafts and the rear exit right.
Targets were certainly swarming all over the place, but the stampede to clear what he could only imagine was a dragon’s tongue of fire chasing them out, sent them pitching to the sand, all tangled heaps of arms and legs, guys squawking in Farsi, bleating out the pleas for God’s divine intervention.
