Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

it will indicate that we are being contacted by a tower or, God forbid, a fighter plane patrol. If they are speaking in Farsi,” Quinn said, “I’ll signal you to talk to them. Positive of the drill?”

“Gotcha.”

“Volkovitch, the same goes for you in Russian.”

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Aye, aye.

Bomb carts rolled in sleek baby missiles. The “Duncan” missiles were short, light, but could penetrate a heavily resistant bunker. At Fort Urbakkan they would be shooting at a mix of mud and stone.

A second set of bombs were little fat ones, murderous against personnel, ugly cluster bombs to shower the enemy with thousands of razor-sharp steel squares and ball bearings.

The nacelles would remain at 75 degrees so the SCARAB could fire from helicopter mode without fear of hitting the propellers. Space under the wing was limited. The laser guidance system looked fine.

The bombing run, in Gunner O’Connell’s hands, had to be executed accurately and surely. To hit the targets dead-on, the SCARAB would be maneuvered as close as possible. Would the hovering SCARAB take Iranian ground fire in this period? Were the bombs squirrely? Could they be held fast during what had to be a wild, shaking flight?

In the rear of the main cabin of the SCARAB an operating table and supplies of blood, surgical tools, and medicines were secured on the ceiling. A pulley rope allowed them to drop easily into place. Dr. Wheat checked over his supplies. Christ, keep the casualties down. The table was again stowed and secured to the roof.

Jeremiah Duncan and his pilots went over the exterior of the SCARAB, an

inspection that lasted an hour and a half. In that time a tanker truck

entered the hangar and filled the plane with fuel. This was a dicey

moment. With this size load and full gas tanks, there was a remote

possibility of fire during takeoff. Jeremiah had spotted the danger

months earlier, and hoped he had beaten the problem with the Bell and Boeing engineers.

“Gentlemen, the SCARAB is ripe!”

The Marines went to their combat packs and weapons, waiting for the command to fall in.

“You will first evacuate your bowels and bladders. No one will be permitted to leave until he takes an airsick pill.”

Groan! Boo!

“You will take the airsick pill because the Marine Corps says you need an airsick pill. Well be riding some nausea-causing waves of air, and we will bounce until your gut humps up into your throats. Puking is not an option, but if you must do so, vomit in your evacuation bags.”

When all had evacuated who could, they fell in near the boarding ramp. Personnel were loaded forward to aft, so Jeremiah did a round of handshakes and entered behind Cherokee and IV.

Directly behind the pilots and a step higher than their heads, Duncan had a mini-console installed. Duncan, with Novinski on one side of him and Quinn on the other, could read a number of displays from it, to monitor the speed, fuel, terrain, communications, as well as the systems that would come into play at the time of their attack.

“Intercom, we all hooked up?”

“Yo, Quinn.”

“Yo, Cherokee.”

“Yo, IV.”

“Yo, Grubb.”

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Ropo, on.

“Marsh, yo.”

“Novinski here.”

“All troops present and accounted for, sir.”

The hangar door yawned open. A tow cart inched SCARAB out into the

dying light. With the nacelles at 75 degrees, the SCARAB could be

rolled a short distance on the runway in a fuel-saving maneuver for takeoff as compared to full helicopter thrust.

“Dogbreath, this is Cherokee. Shall we go for a rolling start?”

“This is Dogbreath, let me think. We’ve got a monster load on. Any half-power stunts promulgates six or seven risks I can think of, none of them pleasant. Ninety degrees and full thrust, get this son of a bitch up in the air.”

“Yo.”

Cherokee switched on the engines, a whine and then the SCARAB’s whispering thunder.

“Thrust,” Cherokee ordered.

IV took the long handle to his left and levered it down. The SCARAB hesitated an instant, rose, hung, then popped up.

“We’re at a thousand .. . eleven hundred,” IV said.

“Beep the nacelles down.”

Cherokee’s Fred Astaire feet tickled the rudders as his hand on the joystick held the nose still.

“Nacelles at forty-five degrees.”

“Let’s do some flying .. . but first I want to sing you all a little song.”

Arrayed at the cramped console behind the pilots, Novinski engaged the FLIR to be able to see the ground at night.

Jeremiah and Quinn hovered over the displays depicting Fort Urbakkan’s layout. The fort’s main installations stood three hundred feet down a courtyard next to a headquarters building with radio and telephone capacity. Next to headquarters, an enlisted barracks and mess hall, next the officers quarters. Across the back wall, the supply building and arsenal.

Opposite this, a stable for mules to negotiate the final miles along the cliff-side road to Urbakkan. Then a small prison and punishment court.

Quinn took a radio message and decoded it. THERE IS NO

EVIDENCE OF COMMANDING OFFICER BEING BILLETED IN

MOSQUE.

“That makes the cheese more binding,” Dogbreath said.

Quinn?

“Yo, I read it.”

“Do you think we should save a rack of missiles in case the mosque is armed?” Duncan asked of Quinn.

“No. This intelligence gives us the advantage of entering right over the main gate with no potential enemy able to get behind us. This baby flies so quietly, we’ll make our entrance without being detected. I say we come in and over the main gate, hover and unload our missiles and bombs right down the bowling alley. As soon as the buildings and their munitions go, we come down right alongside Barakat’s tower.”

“Let me think about it,” Dogbreath said. And he did, until his eyes washed out from glaze and concentration.

“Cherokee, this is Dogbreath.”

“Yo.”

“We’re probably going to scratch the mosque as a target. That means we can fly directly over the main gate.”

“No problem.”

“Novinski, this is Dogbreath.”

“Yo,” answered Novinski, sitting next to the general.

“Any of those gadgets give me a reading of how noisy it is outside?”

“Yo,” Novinski said. “Whispering Jesus, singing a lullaby. Under eighty decibels.”

Dogbreath shook his head in amazement. The SCARAB was eight times more quiet in the turbo-prop mode than as a helicopter. Should we make a bombing run or hope that the Iranians are totally off guard? We need a few minutes to get into the fort and for Quinn to squeeze off his missiles. I vote for Quinn.

Dogbreath turned and smiled and waved to RAM in the rear. They sat

knee to knee in hard-ass bucket seats, their combat packs, helmets, and

weapons crammed on the deck in the center aisle. Dogbreath found

something else to fret about: the main cabin was not pressurized, and they’d have to go on oxygen if the SCARAB went high to save fuel.

The first point of the flight was to fly into the northernmost tip of Iran, avoiding Tabriz radar. The SCARAB took to her zigzag preprogrammed course like an old pro. Although the entire mission was made more difficult by mountains, she cruised un excitingly No calls from Tabriz!

Sensing that radar coverage was poor and feeling the SCARAB might not be picked up at all because of her composite materials, Dogbreath ordered her up over the mountaintops to save fuel.

They flew close to plan toward the IranianArmenianAzerbaijan borders.

“Volkovitch and Fellah, this is Dogbreath.”

“Yo.”

“Yo.”

“Are you scanning your frequencies?”

“Fellah here. Tabriz tower is speaking normally. Apparently, they didn’t see us or hear us.”