“I’m sorry, I don’t want to depress you. I told myself it has to be this way and thought I could handle it.”
He walked over to her and knelt beside her as she buried her face in her hands. As he stroked her hair, she turned toward him and threw her arms around his shoulders, kissing him passionately. “Oh, Peter, I’m all wrong. You need to do this, I want you to do this, but I don’t want to lose you!”
He answered slowly, “Look, honey, I just put together the most awesome plan and got full approval. I’ll have more stuff supporting me that anything I’ve ever done before. I’m not going in alone. John Stokes is going with me along with First Sergeant Josh Blomstein. They’re both good guys that I can count on. We’ll get this done and be home before you know it. The whole plan could be over in a few days.”
“Peter, I know you love me, and I don’t want you to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
He held her and kissed her for several minutes then went upstairs for his gear. A driver was waiting curbside to take him to Andrews.
Operation Deal Break
There was no time to invent a fancy name for the operation, so the first suggestion stuck. By nine o’clock that night, all three combatants and dozens of support personnel were aboard the C5 Galaxy aircraft, and the largest airplane ever built in the U.S. was screaming down the runway at Andrews. The behemoth felt like flying inside a basketball arena. Peter was in charge of the operation and he instructed everyone to sleep for five hours before beginning the mission briefing. Both Stokes and Blomstein knew little about the mission, except they both trusted Peter. Both had been stuck behind desks most of the time and were exhilarated about going into the field again.
Hours later, the mission briefing was completed. All were amazed by its audaciousness, and it helped to know Peter had been in country before.
At 2:30PM, the giant airplane landed at Baghdad International Airport and taxied to the military air terminal where U.S. flights arrived and departed around the clock. The C5 was parked near an open hanger with the rear cargo door facing into the military complex, hidden from civilian onlookers. Everyone was weary from the flight and appreciated the solid ground again, even if it was inside a hanger in a desert.
The Central Military Command had arranged for food, cold drinks, lounge chairs and cots. Peter stayed aboard until everyone departed the aircraft then followed down the long ramp. The C5 has a unique ability to lower the body of the aircraft on the landing struts once the airplane stopped, permitting an almost level surface on the loading ramp. As he walked down, several senior officers were waiting to assure that all equipment was ready.
After an hour of equipment checks, he joined the rest of the team for food and last minute instructions. They would begin assembling equipment kits at 1800 hours, and start the first insertion leg at 2100 hours, 9:00PM. There was no time to rest. While preparing, an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter approached, landing near the C5, and then taxied close to the huge hanger door. The insertion team, code named Striker, loaded their gear aboard the helicopter, ready to depart in three minutes. The mission was officially underway as they lifted off the runway.
As the Blackhawk took off, the pilots extinguished landing and running lights. The big black helicopter would fly at three thousand feet, nearly undetectable from the ground by human observers. Their destination was a mountain base near the Iranian border, thirty miles east of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. It was the nearest friendly location to launch a raid on Western Tehran, about two hundred fifty miles to the East. They landed at about 2300 hours, on schedule.
It took five minutes to transfer their gear to another modified HH-60. The HH-60G Pave Hawk, was developed for covert military insertions in unfriendly territory. The helicopter flies at almost two hundred miles per hour using dozens of classified navigation aids and automated defensive systems. It’s equipped to fly at treetop level following ground contours using night vision systems. Pave Hawk aircrews are all volunteers highly trained to perform these missions in all weather conditions. It has special lifting systems and weapons. It can penetrate undetected deep into enemy territory using stealth technology and special tactics. It can also be refueled in flight without landing.
As the team strapped in, two crewmembers took stations at M-240 machine guns on opposite sides of the aircraft, both equipped with infrared fire control systems that compensate for aircraft motion. The strike team was a little edgy as the twin turbine engines began to spool up, each producing over sixteen hundred horsepower. The aircraft vibrated violently until the ship was airborne, with the landing gear retracted.
The terrain between Kirkuk and Tehran was all mountainous, good for hiding below radar but hard to navigate. Several peaks were too high for the helicopter to fly over, so the pilots had been plotting routes through the valleys and flying simulations for hours. The route took over two hours with frequent turns matching the terrain. The region had no villages or towns, and the crew didn’t expect any opposition going in. The helicopter would fly a different course returning to base. The flight was at the maximum range for the helicopter without refueling.
The big helicopter banked, rose and fell continuously making the team woozy, but the moonlight gave a spectacular view, flying through the mountains. The pilots had charted a course avoiding known military outposts. They could not predict roving patrols, which had been increased in the mountains near the Iraq border with heightened fears of a U.S. invasion.
Flying through the West Alborz Mountain range was complicated by the tall mountains. Five peaks rose above thirteen thousand feet, with dozens over ten thousand. The combat helicopter could not fly over them. They had to navigate around. The flight control system had been programmed with the complete three-dimensional course map, so the pilots watched for unforeseen obstacles and antiaircraft weapons. The complex route made it impossible to deviate from the flight plan. If they encountered insurmountable enemy opposition along the planned route, they would have no choice but to return to base.
Although the helicopter was noisy inside, it had special rotors and an engine muffling system that made it hard to detect from the ground beyond a few hundred feet. It was after midnight and the team felt confident that they would not be detected going in. After thirty minutes in the air, Peter was able to close his eyes and relax. He thought about the pilots jogging around every terrain feature while their vision was tunneled through NVGs. It took courage to trust the flight computer to stay close to the earth, yet avoid obstacles. There was no margin for error. It’s not in the nature of pilots to give up control of their craft, and they had to be alert for uncharted obstructions, such as new power lines or communication towers. Fortunately, this part of Iran was undeveloped. Enemy gunfire and missiles were the main reason they needed to remain vigilant. This mission, because of its duration and rugged landscape, required intense concentration, flying at the boundaries of human endurance for several hours. Everyone’s lives depended on the skill of the pilots.
Ops Center
In the basement of the Pentagon, the operations center was fully staffed. The forward part of the auditorium contained a bank of huge LCD color displays. Military personnel skilled in their various specialties sat at their consoles. Communications with the strike team were managed initially through the aircraft systems, but once the team was on the ground, they would use a portable satellite station from a location in the hills above Western Tehran. As the ground team moved away from the fixed base in the mountains, they would use small PRC-112 survival radios with enough range to reach high altitude aircraft for relay back to the hanger in Baghdad.
The operations center was under the command of Lt. General John Simmons, who would stay on duty until the mission was over. There were limited sleeping facilities, but Simmons wouldn’t sleep anyway until the op was over.
The center was controlling several multi-camera satellites from Air Force Space Command. The classified birds were redirected into synchronous orbit above Tehran. The central display was the size of a mu
ltiplex cinema screen showing a virtual map of the whole country. In this case, the display had been zoomed into the northwest quadrant including the entire flight path from Kirkuk. On the screen, there was a small blue triangle with an elongated point moving through the mountains toward Tehran. Simmons remained at the commander’s station watching the progress and listening to all dialogue being broadcast throughout the center.
Everyone was calm and the communications kept to a minimum. Everything was progressing as planned.
Access to the OC was restricted. Simmons received special authorization from the Army Chief of Staff to allow Rachael inside, but as the operation was beginning, she stayed in her office, unsure if she wanted be there. She had seen Peter in action when they met in Chicago, but they were not in love then.
In Country
Two hours into the flight, Peter pulled the survival radio from his leg pocket in his Desert Camouflage Uniform (DCU), “Base Bravo, this is Striker One, radio check, over.”
There was an immediate response in his handset, “Roger Striker One, copy five by five, over.”
“Striker One, out.”
He was satisfied that he had connection with the Pentagon.
Aboard the