Leon Uris - A God In Ruins

“Volkovitch?”

“No news from the Russians in Baku.”

“Novinski?”

“Yo?”

“Anybody’s radar suspect we’re up here?”

“Sure doesn’t look like it.”

“Dogbreath to Cherokee and IV. We’re looking very clean. Let’s make a run for the Caspian Sea just south of Arbail,” Dogbreath ordered.

The SCARAB descended as she approached the Caspian Sea and banked right to follow the coast. A high mountain range along the coast would give them cover from inland installations. Intelligence had the mountains well photographed. A dodge here and a twist there would keep them from being spotted.

Those not eating candy bars slept sitting up.

At the Iranian-Turkoman border, Dogbreath ordered the pilots to stay north and cross a deep marsh that would allow them to come around the back door into Iran and give a wide berth around Teheran.

Into a mad swirl of clashing hot and cold winds, the SCARAB chopped and chopped and dropped suddenly, then dropped into a wadi with her tail almost completely whipped around. Cherokee quickly took her off automatic pilot.

The craft was sorely protesting her load and altitude.

“Novinski, this is Cherokee, how is your terrain following?”

“We’re in a tight-ass valley. The cross winds are too crazy. We may not be getting accurate readings,” Novinski said.

“I’m going visual. You stay on the multifunction radar,” Cherokee said.

“Yo,” IV said.

Cherokee put on his night-vision goggles, whispered an “Oh, Jesus.”

“I’m going up a thousand feet and clear that ridge.”

That ridge didn’t want to be cleared, hurtling wind into chainsaw mountaintops. Debris spewed up, some of it pelting the SCARAB.

“Shit!” Novinski noted as the bottom fell out on the far side of the ridge. Another roller-coaster wadi compelled Cherokee and IV to fly by the seat of their pants.

During the violent weather and turbulence, Dogbreath kept his mind on his display panels, unaware of the tension about him.

Should I have taken a spare pilot from El Toro? Damned, how could I? We only have a total of twenty men with arms. Marginal, marginal, well, hell, can’t do anything about it now. What’s that? he asked himself as perspiration beaded over his forehead. Goddammit, I should have taken an airsick pill. I cannot puke in front of these people!

“Quinn, this is Dogbreath.”

“Yo.”

“We’ve scratched the mosque as a target, so let’s examine your frontal assault plan.”

SCARAB dropped into a long, flat valley, and the air became dirty, woefully dirty. Quinn looked back and saw RAM tossed up and down, like a film with broken threads. Yelps!

“Congratulations, men,” Cherokee said, switching on the loudspeaker system, “we made it again.”

Quinn gave a fuel reading to IV. The bitch was drinking up too many calories. IV fine-tuned the angle of the prop blades.

“Quinn to front cabin. We’re cleared of Teheran radar.”

“Dogbreath to Cherokee.”

“Yo.”

“We’re using up too much fuel. It is touch and go if we can reach the tanker plane or not. Since we’re cleared of major radar and there are no patrols in the area, shut down the terrain follower and take her up to twenty thousand and look for some smooth air.”

“I’ll see if I can run into a tailwind going our way,” Cherokee said.

“Attention, all hands,” Dogbreath said. “We will be climbing, looking for better air. Prepare your oxygen masks for deployment over your ugly faces.”

Bad time for humor. The rear cabin looked like carcasses hanging from hooks in a butcher’s freezer.

SCARAB climbed happily.

“Satellite report coming in,” Quinn said. “A few commercial flights to and from Teheran.”

lime?

“We are sixteen minutes behind.”

“Here we go,” Cherokee sang as his engine mellowed, caught a tailwind, and lifted her speed to a respectable five hundred subsonic knots per hour. . Dogbreath’s head nodded as he joined his men snapping out a thirty-second nap.

“Novinski, this is Dogbreath.”

“Yo.”

“What will the wind be doing at twelve thousand?”

“One-forty at twenty-three knots, but definitely swirling over Urbakkan.”

He clicked on the SCARAB’s loudspeaker. “This is Dogbreath. The wind doth bloweth, too strong and from iffy directions. I’d like your input. We scratched napalm as one of our ordnance and replaced it with phosphorous. We are now considering the idea of a direct courtyard landing after dispensing missiles and bombs. If we drop a phosphorous curtain, as we have practiced, we will have to fly out and circle the fort. I likewise fear that the courtyard mud might be flammable, and a fuck-up wind shift send the fire right back at us. Of course, the phosphorous could well insure our success ... if it goes perfectly.”

“This is Grubb. I don’t like working with fire, it doesn’t

cooperate.”

“Novinski here. How about something like this: ditch the phosphorous about ten miles downwind from the fort. It will save us nearly seven hundred pounds.”

“This is Quinn. Can’t ditch it all. We need some to have flare capacity when we rendezvous with the tanker plane.”

“IV.”

“Yo.”

“No phosphorous drop. If we light up the fort too soon, it could give the Irans several minutes to organize. We may need the flares on the way home.”

“Yo” confirmations. Dogbreath pulled down his night-vision goggles and peered from one display panel to another. The phosphorous was a damned-if-you-do, damned-if you-don’t decision. “What character this plane has,” he thought. “If we come through this, it will be a big player in the Marine Corps’ future. How do you feel, Jeremiah Duncan?” he asked himself. “Pretty good, I believe we’ve got everything covered.”

“Attention, all hands, this is Dogbreath. We are making a variation of the landing. We will not make passes over the fort but fire our artillery from the hover position, then drop right into the courtyard. Marsh, Ropo,” he said, calling the squad leaders.

“Yo.”

“Yo.”

“This is Dogbreath. We will pick up twenty minutes, and Cherokee will reduce speed so that we hit our target precisely on the minute.”

H-hour minus twelve minutes .. . eleven minutes.

“All hands, check your weapons, ammo clips, and gear. Do not carry anything out of the SCARAB you can’t shoot or eat or wipe your ass with. Keep your oxygen masks on until you debark.”

H-hour minus seven minutes.

The front cabin people were all wearing night-vision goggles, and the FLIR gave a pretty picture of what was passing beneath them.

“Jesus!” Dogbreath thought. “What if we just put the SCARAB down in the courtyard and loudspeaker to the Iranians that we are an Iranian plane dispatched to take Barakat away to Teheran! No ... if we landed and set up a perimeter, we’d get into a nasty fire fight when they caught on. No, we’ve got to knock out our targets. But what an idea! Never will get a chance at it... Okay, Dogbreath, scratch that one ..

.”

H-hour minus three minutes.

Holy shit, Mother McGee! IV saw it first in the sallow green, grainy glow that lit up their screen. Further glows flashed on the display panels.

“The minaret is sticking up like the hard-on I had this morning,” Cherokee said. “IV, start lifting the nacelles.”

“Forty-five .. . fifty .. . sixty .. . seventy-five .. .”

“Nothing moving down there, Dogbreath,” Novinski said.

A slight engine and propeller thump was smoothed by Cherokee’s hand.

“We are in helicopter mode,” IV said.

“This is Dogbreath. Quinn?”

Quinn O’Connell took a reading from his display screen, then locked on to the far end of the courtyard with a laser beam. Its light could not be seen by the Iranians. There it is! The communications tower. The beam further lit up the installation buildings.