Major Reach was astonished by Freeman’s plan, as was the British brigadier, now being apprised of Freeman’s request for a seventy-man squadron of joint British/American troops from the SAS — Special Air Service — unit out of Hereford in Wales, the same unit in which David Brentwood, Lana Brentwood’s younger brother, had so distinguished himself during the SAS’s breaching of Moscow’s innermost defenses.
“But General,” protested Reach, “don’t you think the hovercraft amphibians could launch an assault against the island? They have infrared, high-resolution optics—”
“No, I don’t. Pressure ridges between the Alaskan mainland and Diomedes stretch the full twenty-five miles. That’s no goddamned hockey rink out there, Reach. You ought to know that. It’s pack ice — thirty feet thick and rougher’n Granny’s tits. Up and down, movin’ all about. Those hovercraft’d get a good run going on that air cushion, then bang! An ice ridge, big as a house. Besides, it’d be a turkey shoot for those Rat batteries. Might as well give ‘em invitations to a ball. No, Major, I want the best parachute troops we’ve got.”
“Why don’t we call Fort Campbell?” suggested Reach. “Hundred and First Airborne. Get them and their 105 howitzers aboard those big C-141s. They could be up here within twenty-four hours. Or we could get the Eighty-Second Airborne’s Ready Brigade out of Fort Bragg?”
Douglas Freeman looked sternly at Reach. The young major seemed amiable enough, but two things about him were bothering the general. The first was that Reach either didn’t know or had forgotten that the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne were now only air mobile, no longer a parachute-delivered force, despite the retention of their gung ho title. The second thing was that Reach didn’t know the Eighty-Second Airborne were still in Europe, trying, along with the Brits and U.S. Ranger battalions, to penetrate the Ural Mountains on Siberia’s west flank. In any event, the marine expeditionary unit wasn’t to be a spearhead but would only go in after, if the SAS and any other special forces Freeman could dig up could first “unplug,” in the general’s words, “the Rat’s maze” that was Big Diomede.
“Reach?”
“Sir?”
“You’re fired! Don’t know a goddamn thing about the ice, and you still think the Eighty-Second is in North Carolina. You also think the One-Oh-One uses chutes. Nothing personal, Major, but I can’t afford to have you around. You don’t do your homework. You get yourself back to G-2. Bury yourself in Siberiana, and if God’s with you, you’ll get a second chance with me. But not against Rat Island. Your ignorance is too damned dangerous, son.”
In the silence between the Boeing’s banks of electronic consoles all that could be heard was the Boeing itself, its four twenty-one-thousand-pound Pratt and Whitney engines in a steady roar as if endorsing the general’s decision.
By the time the Royal Canadian Air Force F-18s from NORAD, released by headquarters in Cheyenne Mountain to escort the general’s plane for the second half of his journey to Alaska, were high over the Rockies in Alberta, Major John Reach’s unorthodox firing was known to everyone aboard the Boeing and among ground operators from Anchorage to Nome. Freeman hoped it would sweep right through Alaska Command, especially through the twenty-two hundred men of the MEU and to every pilot aboard the MEU’s four Apache attack choppers and those who would be driving the sixteen CH-46 and CH-53 medium- and heavy-lift assault transport choppers, to every man and woman associated with Operation Arctic Front, that old Hardass Freeman was back. Besides, if he didn’t take Rat Island, the Pentagon’d fire him. If he didn’t take it, he’d fire himself.
Freeman called Fort Bragg to ask for two of the remaining one-hundred-man Delta Force companies, the best combination of demolition, radio, and hand-to-hand specialists who, with their blood brothers, the SAS, would go in first.
However, Delta Force command, even drafting instructors from its Shooting House — used for antiterrorist training at Bragg — could come up with only seventy men at most, only as many as the SAS would have, the remaining SAS and Delta Force already in action trying to take out the Siberian prepo sites — giant ammunition and fuel dumps — believed hidden and well-camouflaged in the Urals. Most of these were American and British commandos from SAS and Delta Force who in ‘91 had been dropped behind the lines during the Iraqi war looking for the kind of upgraded Scuds that some Moslem fundamentalist groups were now threatening to use against the British and American southern command that was spread out between the Black and Caspian seas.
With SAS and Delta Force commandos combined Freeman would have only one hundred and fifty men at most to throw in on the HALO jump, but with what he had in mind — a quick, unexpected spearhead attack by the superbly trained British and American commandos — it might be enough. To bolster that confidence, he had personally requested that the survivors of the SAS raid into Moscow — especially young David Brentwood, who also had the experience of the Pyongyang raid behind him— be included in the attack.
Freeman also insisted Big Diomede be referred to as Rat Island because of the danger of mixing up Big Diomede and Little Diomede in the maze of radio transmits that would fill the air once the assault was underway, and that if the Siberians were stupid enough to risk sending troops across the ice to assault Little Diomede’s Patriot antiballistic missile batteries, the batteries should be destroyed. The last thing Freeman said he wanted was casualties from “shorts” or AD — accidental discharge — that is, friendly fire. He knew better than most soldiers that up to 12 percent of all casualties would result from friendly fire anyway. After D-Day in July ‘44, the U.S. breakout from Rommel’s beachhead defenses into the bocage—the open hedgerow country — had been seriously delayed because of “shorts.” “Second Household Cavalry,” he told his new interim aide, “suffered more casualties preparing for D-Day than they suffered in the first four months after D-Day. You believe that?”
“Ah — yes. I don’t know, sir.”
“It’s true, all right,” said Freeman.
“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know,” said the aide, still unnerved by Reach’s dismissal.
“No reason you should, Captain,” Freeman assured him.
“But just about every possibility in war has already been thought of. Trick is to think of it again.” Freeman smiled. “You read your history, Captain. It’s all in there.” Freeman steathed himself against the buffeting of a wind shear that suddenly sucked the plane down in a gut-wrenching plunge. All the while his gaze remained fixed on the play-dough model of Ratmanov that he’d made up after ordering four loaves of bread from the gallery, squeezing the bread into the tooth shape of the island.
“Course,” said Freeman, “there’s always the surprise factor.” Rule of thumb told him that for any assault on the island to stand a ghost of a chance he should have a five-to-one advantage, but then again that’s just what the Siberians would expect from the Americans — a massive chopper-borne attack.
Everything came down to a matter of speed — the kind of speed the black-hooded SAS had used on May 6, 1980, “cleaning out” the Iranian Embassy, taking out all the terrorists, and rescuing the hostages in eleven minutes flat — with the kind of professionalism and hair-trigger expertise that young Brentwood and his SAS troop had penetrated the Kremlin’s defenses. Suddenly Freeman was gripped by a bowel-chilling fear. He recalled the report of at least two navy flyers going down. They had ejected safely, but no ID flares appeared, though they would have shown up brilliantly against the snow if the flyers had had time to activate them. Which meant that the moment his SAS/Delta Force airborne troops landed, enemy troops might well be ready to swarm up and out like cockroaches, bringing the battle to the Allied force before any of the British or Americans had landed.”What we need against those rats,” said Freeman, “is a big can of Raid! Get the Elmendorf — the air commander.”