B-TROOP, 1ST of the 11th, moved out on schedule, spreading out and traveling due north, with the Bradley scouts in the lead and the «Battlestar» tanks half a klick behind, ready to respond to a report of contact. It provided a strange revelation to Donner. An intelligent man, and even an outdoorsman of sorts who enjoyed backpacking with his family on the Appalachian Trail, he spent as much time as he could looking out of the Bradley, and didn't have a clue as to what was really going on. He finally overcame his embarrassment and got on the interphones to ask the track commander how he knew, and was called forward, where he crammed himself as a third man in a space designed for two—more like one and a half, the reporter thought.
"We're here," the staff sergeant told him, touching his finger to the IVIS screen. "We're going that way. 'Cording to this, there's nobody around to bother us, but we're looking out for that. The enemy" — he changed the display somewhat—"is here, and we're along this line."
"How far?"
"About twelve klicks and we should start to see 'em."
"How good is this information?" Donner asked.
"It got us this far, Tom," the track commander pointed out.
The pattern of movement was annoying, and reminded the reporter of stop-and-go traffic on a Friday afternoon. The armored vehicles would dart—never faster than twenty miles per hour—from one terrain feature to another, scan ahead, then move some more. The sergeant explained that they'd move in a steadier manner on better ground, but that this part of the Saudi desert was marked by hillocks and ridges and dips that people might hide behind. The Brads were in a platoon, but actually seemed to move in pairs. Every M3 had a "wingman," a term borrowed from the Air Force.
"What if there's somebody out there?"
"Then he'll probably try to shoot at us," the staff sergeant explained. All this time, the gunner was traversing his turret left and right, searching for the glow of a warm body on the chilled ground. They could actually see better at night, Donner learned, which was why Americans had adopted the darkness as their preferred hunting time. "Stanley, come left and stop behind that bump," he ordered the driver. "If I was a grunt, I'd like that place over to the right. We'll cover Chuck as he comes around it." The turret rotated and sighted in on a larger bump, while the Bradley's wingman drove past. "Okay, Stanley, move ut."
THE ARMY OF God command section had proved devilishly hard to pin down, but now Hamm had two helo-scout troops detailed to that single mission, and his electronic-intelligence section had just set up again, co-located with 2nd Squadron's headquarters troop. They'd taken to calling their target the enchilada. Locate it, and disorganize the entire enemy force. Saudi intelligence officers attached to the ELINT tracks were listening to signals. The UIR forces had encrypted radios for the senior commanders, but those were good only for talking to other people with the same equipment, and with the gradual degradation of the enemy radio network, sooner or later the enchilada would have to start talking in the clear. One Corps and two divisional command posts had been hit, two of those almost totally destroyed and the other badly disrupted. Moreover, they knew roughly where III Corps was, and Army would have to start talking to that formation, since it was the only one so far not engaged except by a few air strikes. They didn't have to read the messages, nice though that would have been. They knew the frequency ranges for the high-command circuit, and a few minutes of traffic would enable them to localize it enough for M- and N-helicopter-scout troops to dart in and start ruining their whole morning.
It sounded like static, but digitally encrypted radios usually did. The ELINT officer, a first lieutenant, loved eavesdropping, but missed his jamming gear, which had been overlooked in the POMCUS equipment sets, probably, he thought, because that was supposed to be an Air Force mission. There was an art to this. His troopers, all military-intelligence specialists, had to tell the difference between real atmospheric static and manmade static as they swept the frequencies.
"Bingo!" One said. "Bearing three-zero-five, hissin' like a snake." It was too loud to be atmospheric noise, random though it might have sounded.
"How good?" the officer asked.
"Ninety percent, elltee." A second vehicle, slaved electronically to the first, was a klick away, providing a baseline for triangulation… "There." The location came up on the computer screen. The lieutenant lifted a radio for the 4th Squadron command post.
"ANGEL-SIX, this is PEEPER, we may have a posit for the enchilada…."
M-Troop's four Apaches and six Kiowas were but twenty klicks away from the position, conducting a visual search. A minute later, they turned south.
"WHAT IS HAPPENING!" Mahmoud Haji demanded. He hated using this phone-radio lash-up, and just getting in contact with his own army commander had proved difficult enough.
"We have encountered opposition south of King Khalid Military City. We are dealing with it."
"Ask him the nature of the opposition," Intelligence advised his leader.
"Perhaps your guest could tell me that," the general on the other side of the conversation suggested. "We're still working to find out."
"The Americans cannot have more than two brigades in theater!" the man insisted. "One more brigade-equivalent in Kuwait, but that is all!"
"Is that so? Well, I have lost more than a division in strength in the last three hours, and I still don't know what I'm facing here. Two Corps has been badly mauled. One Corps has run into something and is continuing the attack now. Three Corps is so far untouched. I can continue the attack to Riyadh, but I need more information on what I'm facing." The commanding general, a man of sixty years, was not a fool, and he still felt that he could win. He still had about four divisions' worth of combat power. It was just a matter of directing it properly. He actually felt lucky that air attacks from American and Saudi forces had been so light. He'd learned a few other lessons fast. The disappearance of three command sections had made him cautious, at least for his own safety. He was now a full kilometer from the radio transmitters attached to his armored command vehicle, a BMP-lKSh, his handset at;nd of a lengthy spool of commo wire. He himself was surrounded by a squad of soldiers, who did their best not to listen to the excitement in their commander's voice.
"DAMN, LOOK AT all those SAM tracks," a Kiowa observer said over the radio, from eight klicks north. His pilot made the call while the observer did a count.
"MARAUDER-LEAD, this is MASCOT-THREE. I think we have the enchilada."
"THREE, LEAD, go," was the terse reply.
"Six bimps, ten trucks, five SAM tracks, two radar tracks, and three ZSU-23s in a wadi. Recommend approach from the west, say again, approach from the west." It was far too much defensive firepower to be much of anything other than the Army of God's mobile_command section. The SAM launchers were all French Crotales, and those little fuckers were scary, MASCOT-THREE knew. But they should have picked a different spot. This was one of those situations where you were better in the open, or even on high ground, so that your SAM radars could see better.